


A Hole in the Head

by cagestark



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Boss!Tony, Brat!Peter, Current Starker, Explicit Sexual Content, Future winterironspider, I literally deleted plot as it tried to present itself, I wanted this to be pwp, M/M, Mafia AU, Multi, Pining, RIP Cage, Safewords, Sex, So BDSM?, Spanking, This fic is actually pretty soft I think, Too Many Fashion Descriptions, Violence, as in, yet i'm 20k in and the trio still hasn't fucked
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:09:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 27,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23538142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cagestark/pseuds/cagestark
Summary: When a threat looms, Tony needs extra security to ensure his young lover's protection. Barnes is the best. But he's exactly the kind of snack Peter wants around, and the kid loves to play with his food.Established Starker/Future WinterIronSpider
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Peter Parker/Tony Stark, Peter Parker/Tony Stark
Comments: 133
Kudos: 525





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Based on this prompt: Sometimes mafia boss Tony will share his pretty boy with his upper echelon as a reward but only under 3 conditions; 1) Peter has to want to fuck them and can say no 2) it's always sloppy seconds and Tony gets to watch and 3) leave no marks on Peter. The status quo is maintained until Barnes comes on the scene and suddenly Peter is dizzy with the need for that metal hand to wrap around his throat and hold him still while his daddy fucks him into the floorboards they've hidden bodies under.
> 
> Though I did change some things to fit my fancy.

Tony tells Peter that first thing in the morning, a very important meeting of his top figures in the North East will be taking place, and under  _ no circumstance _ (short of imminent doom) is Peter to interrupt. 

That is Tony’s mistake. Nothing tempts Peter more than things he can’t have and things he shouldn’t do.

Peter feels the kiss Tony presses to his curls while the younger man lies nested among the silken blankets they slept curled around each other in. He keeps his eyes shut, feigning sleep. Inhaling silently, Peter smells the brief waft of cologne that makes his morning wood ache, but then the door shuts and Tony is gone down to the first floor of the mansion where his meeting will be held. Peter opens his eyes and throws off the covers, giddy. 

He dresses to kill. The floral Jacquard Casinò-fit suit is  _ kitsch  _ as Tony called it when Peter tried it on at Dolce & Gabbana. The older man has been working on developing Peter’s taste, something he didn’t need much of when growing up poor in Queens.  _ We can take it to that tailor of yours can’t we?  _ Peter had asked, turning until his back faced Tony.  _ How slim of a fit do you think she could give me?  _ Tony had spent thirty long seconds of silence staring at Peter’s slim legs and shapely ass and then agreed that kitsch was  _ in  _ this season.

He leaves the collar of his dress shirt open to show the bruises around his throat, bruises sucked there in passion, redder than rubies and more purple than amethysts. The only jewelry he wears. There’s nothing that gets Tony hotter than his men seeing the ownership he has over Peter. 

And there’s nothing that gets Peter hotter than strutting around in front of them and getting them to crave what is unattainable. 

For a brief moment he remembers Beck, a dark figure taking up residence in the armchair in the corner, hands growing tighter and tighter on the arms of the chair. The sound it made against the hardwood when he stood. The sound of a knife cutting through the air—

Yes, tempting Tony’s men was a dangerous game. One he hadn’t played in a while. But losing the last round just made him wiser. He and Tony would never make a mistake like Beck again. 

-

Peter doesn’t bother knocking. He can hear the murmur of voices beyond the thick oaken door of the dining room, but once he slides it open, all sounds cut out like a record player with the needle pulled up. He lounges in the doorway scanning each occupied chair. There are many familiar faces: Nat, Steve, Sam, Vis, on and on filling the twelve chairs that surround the dining table. 

Tony sits at the head of the table where he belongs. He’s dressed in his own suit for conducting business (a sign that he doesn’t imagine any bloodshed in this meeting which Peter is grateful for because his own outfit wasn’t cheap by any means). The sight of arguably the most powerful man in the country sitting with his relaxed slouch and stormy expression makes Peter’s cock twitch. It downright thickens when he sees those dark, angry eyes latch on to the bruises around his throat. 

“Peter, are you deaf?” Tony wonders. “Or just disobedient?” 

“You know which I am, sir,” Peter admits. His body jerks, already feeling the phantom swings from Tony’s broad hands coming down flat on his bare ass. He never goes easy on Peter, but the sting is so satisfying when Tony takes him from behind, pelvis aggravating the tender skin with every brutal thrust. “But if you didn’t want me here, you would have locked the door.” 

Tony lifts his brows. The entire table is sitting very still, far too practiced in Tony’s line of work to shift in anxiety at the way Peter talks to their boss. Peter can get away with it—here in front of their allies. “I’m going to lock you in a cage like a bad puppy if you can’t follow the simplest directions.”

Peter squawks. Nat shifts to put her elbow on the table so she can hide her smile in her palm. Dragging a palm down the lapels of his suit, he cups himself through it. His hips tip up of their own volition when some heads turn pointedly away from the sight but others can’t seem to look away. Fuck, he loves all the eyes on him. “Maybe if you’d given me a  _ bone _ before leaving our bed, I would have been more inclined to stay.”

Tony rolls his eyes. “Sit, Pete. We can feed your kinks when there’s not work to be done— _ not _ on my lap, Peter.”

“I’m a  _ lap dog _ , sir—!”

Movement down the table from one of the faces Peter doesn’t know—though God, wouldn't he like to. A jaw and mouth perfect to sit on, with a low brow that gives his pale eyes a stormy quality. His long hair falls into his face when he leans into Steve to whisper something. The look Steve gives in return is withering and stern. 

Peter goes to stand—with absolutely no idea of where he’s going and what he’ll do there, under an absolute trance interrupted only by the pulsing of his cock. One of Tony’s arms snakes around his waist and pulls him down, strong as steel. Beneath him, Peter can feel the line of a long, hard erection. “You chose your seat, now sit in it,” Tony says for the room to hear. Then quieter, “I’m going to spank your ass raw later, Peter.”

“I deserve it,” Peter breathes. The brunet beside Steve meets eyes with him, gaze dark and unreadable. One brow rises before he nods his head in deference. Beneath the oak table, one of Tony’s hands palms his erection, pressing firmly in a way that has Peter’s head tipping back to this against the taller man’s chest. The man looks away. 

Tony hums in affirmation and then continues the meeting. There have been issues with weapons shipments being intercepted between Point A and B. Nat reveals some intel that has Tony growing rigid in his seat, breaths coming faster with a fury that does nothing to discourage Peter’s arousal (not the other man’s own). Tony is so fucking powerful and unpredictable, a cunning maelstrom. Peter doesn’t want to weather the storm; he wants to drown in it. He can’t help but shift, wishing they had on less layers so Tony’s hard cock beneath him wasn’t lost under so much fabric. If it pressed firmly against his hole still aching from last night’s sex, Peter wouldn’t be responsible for himself. When it comes to Tony and the sex they have, Peter  _ is  _ like an animal. 

“I’d advise you to up your personal security. They’re getting bolder and looking for something more precious than guns or drugs to take from you,” Natasha says. She looks pointedly at Peter. 

Tony clears his throat. He squeezes Peter’s cock one last time before patting him chastely on the thigh—a dismissal if Peter’s ever been given one. “We can have the rest of this conversation in private, I think. Steve, will you join us?”

Tony makes his rounds shaking hands with the people who have traveled to meet with him. Knowing when to be seen and not heard, Peter lets himself slip back against one wall and watch. When Sam comes to say goodbye to him, Peter throws his arms around the man’s neck and presses their bodies flush together. Over Sam’s shoulder he can see Tony roll his eyes and turn away, used to Peter’s flirtations. In his arms, Sam stands stiff as a statue until Peter draws away, trapping his sigh in his lungs. 

Ever since what he and Tony did to Beck (even if he had it coming), no one dares to play with Peter anymore. 

“Be safe going home,” Peter says.

“Always, kid. Keep your nose clean and stay out of trouble.”

“Never.”

People file out and others file into Tony’s private study. When Peter glances in, he sees the red flame of Natasha and Wanda’s hair, both women with their heads ducked together whispering. Steve stands at the bookshelf perusing Tony’s collection, and (Peter’s heart jumps) the dark haired man stands at the window behind Tony’s desk, staring down at the people who are leaving out the front door. 

“Not you, Pete,” Tony says. Peter frowns. It’s barely soothed by the kiss Tony gives him, soul-sucking, tasting the older man’s coffee. Desperate not to break the kiss, Peter can’t help but surge up onto his toes when Tony tries to draw away. A little discontented sound slips past his lips. He pouts at Tony’s stern expression. “Go on, kid. I mean it. I’ll come find you when I’m done and we’ll brunch together.” 

Peter hums. Reaching down, he palms Tony’s cock, just a little fuller than it would be were he not aroused. “I know just what I want.” 

Tony smirks. “Hold that thought.” 

Then he shuts the door on Peter. Peter gives it ten long seconds before reaching out and rattling the knob—but it’s locked. On the other side, he hears Tony’s laughter and is glad the door is closed so that no one can see how red his cheeks turn. But even with the door closed, he can make out some of the conversation that takes place inside. 

“Mother is overseas,” Tony says, the sound of his desk chair against the hardwood distorting some of his words. “But I’ll call and have her add a few bodies to her personal guard. How serious do you think the risk is, Nat?” 

“Toomes was clear. He feels personally slighted. I doubt that hurting you financially will satisfy him now. I know men like him—”

“Every man is like him,” Wanda murmurs darkly. 

“—he will be looking to the people you care about.”

“Pepper?”

“I can call Happy as soon as we’re done here,” Natasha promises. “We’ve already been discussing increasing security measures since the bomb threat at the SanFran Tower. Adding another person or two to be with her won’t seem out of the ordinary. We don’t want her to panic.” 

“That just leaves Peter,” Steve says.

Peter shivers.

“Once, I might have said that Peter would be safe with me. God knows he barely gives me a moment alone.” Peter rolls his eyes, shifting quietly on his feet to change the angle his ear is pressed against the door. “But I’ll admit that I’ve been  _ shortsighted  _ in the past. He is the most precious treasure I have, and I don’t trust myself to be enough to protect him anymore..”

“I’ll do it.”

Peter doesn’t recognize the gravelly voice.  _ The dark haired man _ . His heart pounds with the realization, breath increasing until he has to hold it in order to hear. 

“I need you, Buck,” Steve says. 

_ Buck _ ? Peter mouths to himself, making a face. What a fucking name. 

“Sam is ready. Take the training wheels off and let him be number two for a while.” 

“Not that I’m not touched, Barnes,” Tony says. “But you’re exactly the kind of snack Peter would want me to assign, and you have no idea how he likes to play with his food. He’d fucking ascend if I made you his personal guard, and then he’d cause us both a world of trouble.”

“Peter likes to flirt,” Natasha translates. “There have been  _ issues.” _

“Pete likes feeling wanted, and he deserves it,” Tony says behind the closed door. “If he wants to flirt and rub against my men all day long, he can—pressing buttons is the kid’s pastime, and it’s usually just harmless fun.” Peter presses his lips together not to snicker. “I don’t think our track record is terrible, honestly. Only one casualty.”

“If I’m not supposed to touch the kid, then I don’t touch the kid,” Barnes says (fuck no Peter isn’t calling him  _ Buck _ ). “I’m not one to put my hand to a stove if I know I’ll be burned.”

“Bucky isn’t the kind of guy to take liberties, Tony,” Steve says. Steve’s men are an extension of him; if he didn’t defend them, it’d be as pathetic as not defending himself. Footsteps move along the floor, like the tall blonde is pacing. “And he  _ would  _ be good at it. Loyal. Smart. Fierce. I just don’t know if I can afford to spare him.” 

“There’s no need to spare him if I don’t yet want him,” Tony says coolly. “Tell me, Soldier: why offer?” 

_ Soldier. _ The word rockets around in Peter’s brain like a ping-pong ball. He couldn’t mean —not the  _ Winter Soldier?  _ Everyone in Tony’s employ knew of the man who (in theory, only maybe not just in theory, not anymore) handled Tony’s dirtiest work, the jobs no one else would take, the ones that were almost guaranteed to be failures. 

Slow, near-silent footsteps that don’t betray the size of the man they belong to. They come close enough that Peter imagines he can see a shadow underneath the crack at the bottom of the door. When the man speaks, his voice is right on the other side of the oak. “Working behind the scenes makes me feel like a dog in a cage. I’ve got instincts, Mr. Stark— _ let me use them. _ ”

Peter has just enough foresight to straighten up before the door is thrust open. He and Barnes stand eye to eye—if Barnes weren’t nearly a foot taller. His eyes are dark like thunderheads threatening wind enough to carry him away and rain enough to drown him. But Peter knows how to swim. 

“Hasn’t anybody ever told you that the key to good eavesdropping is not getting caught?” God, with no medium to temper that gravelly voice, Peter feels like it moves right through him. He doesn’t bother to hide dragging his eyes up and down Barnes’s figure: the broad shoulders, the muscular arms, the stubble on his strong jaw. When he finally makes it back to the man’s eyes, they are empty and closed off. No heat. That’s fine. Peter can play the long game, too.

“You think they’re going to be impressed with you?” Peter asks. “Everybody knew I was listening at the door,  _ Buck _ .”

Barnes hums, giving Peter a mirthless smile. 

Then he shuts the door in Peter’s face. Stunned, the click of the lock comes before Peter’s mouth has closed. Against his will, a noise slips from his throat, high and indignant, and he can’t fight his instincts of slapping a palm against the door and rattling the handle. Inside, he hears everyone’s muted laughter, and then Tony’s voice, _ I want you to start tomorrow, Barnes _ .

A deep breath. In and out. All the anger goes out on the exhale. If there’s one thing Tony has taught Peter, it’s that a cool head sees twice as many moves on the chessboard. Peter leans against the wall for a while longer, lost in thought,  _ but _ —he doesn’t want to wrinkle his suit. By the time the door opens again and everyone floods out, the hallway is empty. 

Barnes has no idea what he’s in for. 

-

“You’re mad.” 

Peter glances up. Tony is there leaning against their bedroom doorway, all sharp lines. When Peter smiles at him, all the tension goes out of his shoulders and he steps over the threshold like a vampire finally given permission to enter. The way he removes his jacket and loosens his tie, removes his cufflinks—if anyone were to see him, they would think him a perfectly respectable businessman. Beneath the dress shirt is the bulletproof vest, his concealed carry which he leaves in the holster. 

There were days when Tony never wore the vest inside their own home, but those days were well past now.

Peter spends so long staring that a drop of clear polish falls off of the wand and onto the top of his bare foot.  _ Fuck _ . A cotton ball comes quick enough to wipe it away before it can leave anything sticky behind. 

“Mess up my pedicure and  _ then  _ I’ll be mad,” Peter murmurs, breathing slow to keep his hands steady. “Is everyone gone?” 

“Every last one,” Tony promises. When he comes out from their closet, he is tugging a t-shirt on over his vest-less chest. Peter gets a glimpse of the long mottled scar that zigzags across Tony’s hollow sternum before the shirt falls in place. The angry purple of the scar is still visible beneath the thin white fabric of his undershirt, but the doctors say it will fade in time. “So how much did you hear?” 

“You insult me by even asking,” Peter mutters. 

“So it won’t be a surprise then when Barnes moves in tomorrow morning.” 

Peter doesn’t glance up, painting his toes. “Is it that serious, then?” 

Tony sits on the edge of the bed. He takes the bottle of polish and pats his lap. Peter’s feet look small and dainty resting against the dark, comfortable jeans he’s tugged on. Hands that have pulled teeth from gaping mouths, that have pulled triggers and killed men and women alike are so gentle as they finish Peter’s painting, a thumb tenderly stroking his ankle. 

“I’m not taking my chances with either of our lives,” says Tony. “Barnes is the best. He and Steve grew up together, you know.” 

“Are they very much alike?” Peter asks. The look Tony gives him says that he’s seen through Peter’s attempt at subtly. Steve Rogers is very straight-edge—a worthy quality in a number-two, a quality Peter is glad the blond possesses when he’s acting in Tony’s best interest. 

But it’s  _ boring _ . 

“Play nice with Barnes,” Tony suggests. “I need him around to protect you. Don’t drive him away until we get this issue with Toomes under control. Understood?”

“I’ll be nothing but welcoming, sir,” Peter promises. 

Tony snorts. He squeezes Peter’s ankle and then pushes up his sleeves to his elbows. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten about your punishment, you little brat. Drop your pants and get over my lap. I don’t tell you to stay away from meetings just for my own sheer amusement.”

Peter thinks about running. It’s fun sometimes, the chase. Being caught. How much harder Tony brings down the flat of his palm against Peter’s backside, sometimes nudging his legs apart to slap softly at Peter’s full cock. But he’s too wound up. The flash of Barnes’s eyes, the way Tony had palmed Peter’s cock under the table...

Reaching down, Peter begins to work at his belt. “I think this time the lesson will stick, sir.” 

Tony snorts. “Sure it will.”


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning finds Peter lounging in bed. When he stretches and twists against the silken sheets, his ass smarts from the sound spanking Tony gave it the night before. His morning wood aches at the reminder. After his punishment, Tony had rolled on a condom and fucked Peter on his hands and knees, the backs of his thighs giving his sore ass a pounding. He’d made Peter cum from his cock alone and then pulled out, shed the condom, and demanded that Peter suck him off.  _ This cock just made you cum, baby, _ he’d said, fingers tangled in Peter’s hair.  _ Treat it real good. Thank it, thank  _ me _. _

The bedroom door opens. Peter sits up, breathless at the sight of Tony’s figure in the doorway.

“Thank God you’re here, sir,” Peter says. “I really don’t think I showed your cock enough gratitude last night.”

Tony steps into the room and Barnes appears following behind him. 

Peter’s mouth goes dry. God, in the afternoon light that streams through the window, Barnes is even more handsome than the dining room chandelier had made him out to be. His jaw is sharp and shadowed, lips full and downturned. The low brow disguises pale eyes and gives the impression that Barnes is always one disappointment away from murder. Nothing turns Peter on more. 

“Oh,” Peter breathes, putting a hand against his bare chest in the semblance of modest astonishment. “Two gifts? I get  _ two  _ cocks to worship?” 

Tony’s mouth has to work hard to keep its flat, unimpressed line. Barnes gives no outward reaction —a tough nut to crack, but Peter knows that the harder the work, the larger the payoff.  “ _ No _ gifts, Peter. You can show my cock gratitude later, though I doubt you’ll still feel moved to. I’m showing Barnes the panic room in the closet. You know it’s noon, don’t you? You shouldn’t lay in bed all day, pumpkin.” 

Without any further acknowledgement of Peter’s existence, Tony ushers Barnes into the large walk-in closet. 

Sighing, Peter slips from the bed, arching his back and stretching again just for the pleasant ache. He grabs fresh boxers to don after he showers and then takes up residence in the in-closet doorway, watching the two men. The panic room door is in the south wall, hidden by a line of Tony’s suits which have been pushed aside.

“Are we resetting the access code, sir?” Peter asks. 

Both men turn. Tony, used to seeing Peter in various states of undress, is more than likely just pleased he isn’t naked and doesn’t bat an eye. Barnes however is not used to it. Those stony eyes drag from Peter’s bruise-ridden collar bone down over his trim chest and abs, catching on the tent in Peter’s boxers (and yeah, it jerks just under the  _ weight  _ of that cold gaze) before following the line of his legs all the way down to the bare feet, toenails shiny with polish. 

Barnes takes it all in—and then he looks back at the panic room door and his eyes don’t touch Peter again. 

“Yes,” Tony answers Peter’s question. “We’re going to set it to something easy for Barnes to remember—” 

“It’s not my panic room,” Barnes interrupts, voice raspy. “If anyone is going to forget, I’d rather it be me instead of you or the kid. Just leave the code as it is, Mr. Stark; I’ll remember it.” 

Tony’s eyebrows lift above the rim of his tinted glasses. 

A complicated man, it’s a fine line between the authority that Tony’s likes having challenged and the kind that is likely to get a man in trouble. In his subordinates, he requires obedience (with only certain exceptions for creative flare). In his lovers, Tony loves the struggle. The intellectual challenge that comes with banter, the power-struggle of dominating a partner who doesn’t bend easily, the joy of breaking a brat. It’s one reason why Peter and Tony are so sexually compatible—both their needs are met in the other. But Barnes, Peter wonders, holding his breath.  _ What kind of challenge is he presenting to Tony? _

After a moment that likely only lasts a few heartbeats, Tony’s head tilts in concession. He brushes onwards so seamlessly that Peter doesn’t even get the chance to analyze what it all means. “If you insist. 774337 opens the door. It locks from the inside automatically upon being closed, and there is a mandatory twelve hour waiting period before the door will open. The only override requires both my thumbprint and Peter’s, so don’t go in there for shits and giggles unless you enjoy solitude.”

“Will that override work if you’re dead?” Barnes wonders. 

“Yes. The scanner isn’t picky about if the thumb is attached to a living person, nor if it comes from the left or right hand. It has prints for both. Should I be killed, feel free to exhume them; they won’t be doing  _ me  _ any good.” 

Feeling sick, Peter storms into the closet and rifles for the first set of clothes he can find. “I don’t want to listen to this,” he says around the knot in his throat. “Ned’s out of school, so I’ll be in the entertainment room.” 

“Okay— _ hey.  _ Come here.” Peter reluctantly lets himself be pulled into Tony’s arms. They hug, not a hairsbreadth between them, Peter breathing in the scent of cologne. If he shuts his eyes, he can see Tony collapsed on the floor beside their bed, his blood black in the moonlight, chest open and wet and gaping. Squeezing his eyes shut, Peter tries to think of something else. But Tony knows. He always knows. “It’s okay, Pete. Barnes is here to keep the both of us safe. But you’re the priority.” 

“I don’t have to like it, sir,” Peter snarks. 

Tony tilts his chin up for a peck. Peter’s eyes open to see Barnes standing by the panic room door and  _ yes _ , he’s watching them. Closing his eyes, Peter threads his fingers through the hairs on the nape of Tony’s neck and goes up onto his toes to keep their mouths connected, spreading his lips and coaxing Tony’s tongue from his mouth to suck on it, feeling the older man’s groan reverberate through his chest. When they part, the both of them are breathing hard. 

Barnes is taking slow, even breaths. Three counts in, four counts out. He’s leaning back against the panic room door watching Peter with a flat, unimpressed look. Peter rolls his eyes. 

“Tony, he’s even  _ more  _ boring than Steve,” Peter complains to his lover in a stage whisper. 

-

“—what do you mean she just wants to— _ Ned, on your right, coming up the- oh, nice shot _ —just wants to be friends? She was the one asking  _ you  _ for dick pics. Am I missing something?” Peter says into the comm of his headset. He sits cross-legged on the floor, back pressed against the sofa. “Are friends swapping nudes now?” 

“Not my friends!” Ned insists, voice tinny from the cheap headset he uses. Peter has offered to buy him one multiple times, but Ned insists that the old one is well broken in.  _ Junky _ , Peter thinks. “I told her I wanted to take it slow— _ nice, good game, bro _ —but I didn’t mean this. This is like, all slow, no burn, you feel me?” 

“Oh, I feel— _ fuck _ !” When the television goes dark for the loading screen, a figure can be seen standing behind him. Peter wrenches the headset clear off and goes for the gun in the end table drawer, but as soon as he turns, he sees that it’s not ( _ Beck, it’s  _ not  _ Beck, Beck’s dead! _ ) some assassin. At least, it isn’t an assassin who is there to kill him. It’s Barnes. “Jesus Christ! Do you mind? Announce yourself when you enter a room, knock or something.” 

Peter picks up the headset. On the other end, Ned is freaking out. He knows vaguely that Peter’s boyfriend is in shady business (and that’s putting it lightly), knows about what happened last Spring regarding Beck just in the vaguest of terms. But still, he’s a good bro, he’s got a good imagination, and he worries. 

“Sorry Ned, it’s nothing. Just some asshole Tony has keeping tabs on me these days.” He glances over his shoulder but Barnes’s face doesn’t even change. Maybe his eyebrows are a little higher than they were, but nothing in his expression reads displeasure or anger. Just boredom, with maybe a hint of amusement. Peter isn’t the best at reading the nuances of expression; he prefers more straightforward body language. 

Rolling his eyes, Peter turns back to the loading screen and immediately mutes the other players in the lobby so he doesn’t have to listen to any twelve year olds argue over whose mom gives the best blowjobs.

“Whoa, dude, you’ve got a bodyguard now?” Ned asks. “That’s sick.” 

“You want him? I’ll loan him out to you. Twenty dollars.”

“Is he hot?” 

“You’re straight, Ned.” 

“Yeah, but you aren’t. I need data!”

Peter rolls his eyes. “Yes, he’s hot.” 

“On a scale of one to ten?” 

Peter turns to appraise the older man. He feels anxious butterflies in his stomach that flap their condor-sized wings when he meets those fathomless eyes that show him absolutely nothing. He makes a show of raking his gaze over Barnes from head to toe, the messy hair that’s an obscene length, the cut jaw, the wide shoulders and trim waist. “Body, ten. Face, ten,” Peter admits. Barnes lifts an eyebrow. “Personality…four.” 

Any amusement drains out of the other man’s face. 

“Ouch,” Ned mutters, though Peter can hardly hear it over his own laughter. 

In four long strides, Barnes passes around the couch Peter sits in front of. He puts one combat boot on the cords coming from the back of the PS4 and Peter has just long enough to cry out an indignant _ hey! _ before the foot twists and jerks, pulling the power supply from the game console. The television goes dark. 

“What the hell are you protecting me from right now, bodyguard?” Peter asks, pulling his headset off. “Having a good fucking time? Congratulations! I sure dodged that bullet!” 

“We need to talk,” says Barnes. God, that voice. It’s lethal. He imagines how it’s rough cadence would compliment Tony’s smooth tones, the both of them above Peter, taking him apart, talking a stream of the most toe-curling filth. He blinks the image away.

“I’m way more likely to do what you want if you just ask, asshole,” Peter growls. 

Barnes laughs, a mirthless sound. “As if, kid. You think I’m stupid? Tony and I spent the whole goddamn morning discussing you and the best way for me to manage you. He made it absolutely clear that you view the simplest requests as challenges, so this is not me  _ asking  _ you to talk. This is me talking. And this is you sitting on your ass like a good little boy and listening to me. Got it?” 

Peter stares, gobsmacked, for one endless moment. Equal parts aroused and furious, watching the scales tip back and forth in his mind, wondering which side will win. “He told you how I treat requests, huh? Did he tell you how I treat  _ demands _ ?” 

Barnes’s eyes narrow—but then Peter is up and vaulting over the couch. He doesn’t expect escaping to be easy (not by a long shot, Peter knows better than anyone how well trained Tony’s men are, how in shape they are) but he doesn’t expect it to be so difficult either. Barnes truly is the Winter Soldier. He takes chase immediately, more instinct than conscious decision, leaping the couch in one graceful movement. Peter can feel the thud of footsteps behind him before he’s even out the door. There’s no chance he can outrun this maniac. 

But Peter has home field advantage. He knows the nooks and crannies, the ins and outs of the place. He doesn’t bother feinting the wrong direction, just puts all of his energy into sprinting down the hallway towards the kitchens and into the pantry. The pantry door can bolt from the inside, all he has to do is reach it and then he can use the secret stairs to go up to the second floor—

He doesn’t even make it that far. One arm, hard as steel, slips around Peter’s waist jerking him back into a chest like a tree trunk. If this were Tony, Peter might be tempted to go lax—Tony spent many months pursuing Peter (literally and figuratively). While they might chase each other sometimes, Peter knows that it’s just to reaffirm Tony’s dominance. But Barnes has no dominance over Peter,  _ yet _ , and there’s no way in hell Peter is going to let him take it easily. 

He throws his head backwards, but Barnes is so fucking tall that it just hits him in the solar plexus. Barnes drops to his knees taking him to the ground. Peter knows that any fight is almost always over once one opponent is on the ground, so he twists with all the strength he has, nails scratching at the clothed arm that pins him tight. One of his heels comes up to strike the assassin in the balls, and all the breath rushes out of him. He loosens his grip just long enough for Peter to slip away and down the hallway, out into the foyer, and then into the kitchen. 

The door slams on the pantry before Peter realizes—Barnes isn’t giving chase anymore. He pauses, breathing as silently through his mouth as he can, reaching down to adjust his hard-on ( _ Jesus, where had that thing come from? Get it together, Peter! _ ). What’s his play? What’s Barnes doing? Has he given up so easily? 

Peter creeps to the wall that has the secret stairs, slides open the panel and begins to ascend the steep spiral, tip-toeing so as to not make any noise. Upstairs, he slides open the panel that sits just outside his bedroom with Tony and waits, listening. No sound. Not that he’d be able to hear one over the blood rushing in his ears. He sticks his head out to look left and right like a child about to cross traffic—but the hallway is empty. 

Creeping out, he slides the panel closed behind him. He can’t remember if he shut the panel in the pantry, but fuck it. Too late to go back now. Inside his bedroom with Tony is a window that opens up onto the rooftop. It’s easy enough to shimmy his way down the drainpipe and let himself fall the rest of the way into the azaleas. The gardeners hate him, but who fucking cares? 

Opening up the bedroom door—Barnes is there standing out the window, looking out with his hands in his pockets like he’s admiring the view of the lawns and the in-ground pool. He glances back at Peter and gives him a smile like a shark’s. Pointing at the window, he says, “Hey, is this the one you like to sneak out of? Huh.” 

Peter slams the door shut. Heart in his throat, he almost makes it to the stairs when a cord tangles itself around his shins and sends him careening to the carpeted floor. He looks down in horror at the device Barnes has just throw to trip him like Peter is fucking  _ cattle _ . 

“Did you just use a  _ bolas  _ on me?” Peter says, kicking his legs to free himself. By then, Barnes is on top of him, rolling him onto his stomach and putting a knee into his lower back. The pressure knocks the breath from his lungs. 

“I spent too many years living in Russia to count, kid. In Siberia, the Yup’ik kids play with these like toys.”

“Thanks for the culture lesson,” Peter grits out. His erection grinds harshly into the carpet, and he’s more than tempted to squirm and revel in the friction. God, he’s so turned on. No one in his life has ever made him feel this hot save for Tony. “Mind getting off of me, now?” 

“You done running?” Barnes asks. 

“Get up and find out.” Barnes threads his fingers into Peter’s hair and pulls up. There’s no holding in the moan that slips free of his open mouth. “Harder,” Peter begs, half-joking. Barnes makes a noise in his throat (disgust? Amusement?) before letting go so suddenly that Peter’s forehead nearly kisses the floor. 

“Listen to me, Peter.” Barnes’s voice is close as he speaks almost directly into Peter’s ear, but no matter how Peter shifts, he can’t feel the air from the older man’s breath. Tragic. “Tony warned me about everything. Your favorite ways to sneak out, your favorite hiding spots, all your tricks and games. He told me that you’d be like this, a runner, a fighter. Warned me that you might need put down in submission and shown who is in charge. Consider this in no uncertain terms:  _ I am in charge _ . I am to keep you safe, and I’m going to do it, no matter what that means. We don’t have to be at each other’s throats as long as you follow the few rules that I have.

“Any move you make, you’re going to run it by me first so that I can take proper precautions to keep you alive. Whatever games you want to play aren’t going to phase me  _ until  _ they endanger you. Then you can expect me to put you down, just like this. Do you understand?” 

Peter’s head feels fuzzy from the adrenalin of the chase and the euphoria of being caught. He can almost see himself pinned there on the floor like a bug beneath the larger man’s shoe, as if he is outside of his own body, but there is no more giddiness or fear. “Yessir,” Peter slurs. He drools on the carpet.

Above him Barnes withdraws from crushing Peter’s pelvis into the floor and Peter wastes no time in grinding his erection into the carpet, groaning as the sensation bursts across his sensitive skin, neurons sparking like fireworks. 

“Jesus, kid,” Barnes mutters. 

“How’s it going?” Tony asks, coming up around the last step of the stairs. He eyes Peter on the floor and his face twists, torn between sympathy and amusement. One of Peter’s hands reaches out, hips arching away from the floor and then back down in an absolutely obscene movement that can be mistaken for nothing besides what it is. “Aww, baby,” Tony purrs, eyes glittering. “Did big bad Bucky put you down? Been a while, huh?”

“ _ To-ny _ ,” Peter whines, far breathier than he’d like. But in this fuzzy place, nothing embarrasses him. When Tony offers Peter a hand, he can’t help but nuzzle against it, the contact burning in the best way. Tony helps him up onto shaky legs and Barnes reaches down to untangle him from the bolas. 

“We’ll be—ah,  _ indisposed  _ for the rest of the afternoon, Barnes, thank you,” Tony says. 

“‘s he coming too, Tony?” Peter asks, looking up the man—Tony! Tony Stark, Peter’s god, his idol, his master, his home and safety.

Tony’s smile wanes. He clears his throat, tucking Peter under his arm while one hand comes up to rub at his sternum the way he does only when the scar beneath his shirt aches. “No, kid. Just us. Bucky will be right outside though, won’t he? Keeping us safe.” 

Barnes nods, his head bowed in deference to Tony as the man passes by, and it’s the last thing Peter sees before the bedroom door closes and Tony becomes the center of his universe. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> find me on tumblr @cagestark


	3. Chapter 3

Peter stares at his reflection, assessing the image. The sweater he wears is dove gray, hemp-fiber and wide knit, giving a glimpse of his lean figure beneath—he likes the way it feels when he moves his arms and the knit brushes over his nipples (which are still tender from the loving abuse Tony delivered to them yesterday). A darling navy tumbled-fabric jacket and chinos complete the outfit, giving him a sense of elegance while remaining casual. 

Usually he likes every item he wears to be on-brand, but Peter doesn’t own any Armani sunglasses. He needs the sunglasses, though. Today, he wants the extra security they give. He wants some  _ control _ , wants his guard to not know where his gaze rests. So on slip the Salvatore Ferragamo sunglasses with the rose-gold frames, like armor. 

After Peter’s embarrassing display yesterday, he’d spent the remainder of his afternoon and evening in his bedroom. He’d dropped after the sex, but only a little, lying shaky in a steaming tub while Tony fed him strawberries and licked the juice from his raw lips. 

“Send him away, sir,” Peter had begged. “I don’t want a guard. I just want  _ you _ .” 

Tony smiles in a way that’s sad and soft. Peter hates that, too. “You didn’t feel that way when you were asking him to join us.” 

“Do y’ think I’m a slut?” Peter asks. He doesn’t cry—but it’s a near fucking thing. Everything, inside him and out feels scratched raw. “Why am I still like this after what Beck did? What’s  _ wrong  _ with me?”

“Pete. Hey, kid, look at me. _ Look at me _ . Good boy. Don’t talk about yourself that way. Do you know what I’d do if anyone said that bullshit about you? I’d kill them, sweet thing. I’d gut them. I’d grind them into dust. Nobody talks about my boy like that, and that goes for you, too. You fearless fucking thing.  _ God _ , you know it drives me crazy watching you lose your mind, no matter who it’s over. And I don’t think there’s a person in the world who could fault you for wanting Barnes. He’s art, isn’t he?”

Peter sits up, startled. Water splashes over the side of the tub and soaks Tony’s pants (the only thing he wears, tugged on hastily after their fucking) but he gives no notice. Pieces to a puzzle he didn’t know existed suddenly snap into place. “You like him too.”

“I like him as much as I can like anybody who isn’t you. I’d say it’s more lust than anything—some admiration too. I’ve seen him dismember a body in ten minutes flat, you know that? I don’t think he knows the meaning of the phrase  _ weak stomach _ . He’s got my respect is what I mean, kid.” 

“More of your respect than Beck had?” 

Tony sighs and lets one hand slip into the bathwater to take Peter’s pruning hand. “Short answer? Way more than Beck had. But Pete, it doesn’t matter anymore. Beck is deader than dead. Do we need to go and visit the hole I dumped him in to make sure? It’s been a while since we’ve visited. Maybe it would help you put it to rest.” 

“And what about you?” Peter asks. He reaches out with the damp fingers of his free hand and runs a wet thumb beneath Tony’s eyes where the skin is thin and bruised looking from nights spent in insomnia and in poor sleep. “Are you resting?” 

“I’m getting there,” Tony promises. “Barnes helps. We’re going to keep him, Pete. You’ve got to make peace with it.” 

They’d spooned and spent the night in their room. Peter had stirred only briefly to Tony pressing a kiss to his forehead and giving him his love before leaving for the day. Plans are being drawn up for a Stark Industries tower in Manhattan, and Tony is up to his eyes with contractors and city planners and architects, spending more time away from the mansion in general. Though he doesn’t say anything, the knowledge is unspoken that Barnes is outside the door, that he will be Peter’s shadow from now on. 

Peter is ready, though.

Every hair in place, he moves to the door and opens it. Barnes is there in the hallway. He has the room beside theirs to sleep in (and isn’t that fodder for Peter to consider when he’s jerking off in bed, thinking about thin walls and naked assassins tangled in the sheets), but from what Tony told him, Barnes doesn’t often sleep. The years he spent in Russia being trained in  _ God-knows-what _ have changed him. It’s no wonder that most of the people in Tony’s employ speak of him like he’s a phantom. 

Without acknowledging the other man’s existence, Peter goes downstairs and makes himself breakfast: organic overnight oats and avocado toast. Barnes takes up residence in a stool at the island countertop, eyes on his phone. He looks like a bored receptionist. 

Maybe Peter should make things a little more interesting for him.

“I’m going to the mall,” Peter says off the top of his head. Because the best plans are the ones no one can see coming, including Peter himself. Barnes doesn’t flinch at the sudden words. His head turns slowly, eyes half-lidded as he stares at Peter blankly.  _ Did they not have malls in Russia? _ Peter thinks with scathing glee. “This is me being  _ nice  _ and warning you.” 

“Why?” 

“Because you asked me to?” 

“Why are you going to the  _ mall _ ?” 

“To hang out? To windowshop? To  _ shop  _ shop? I don’t know. I’ll figure it out when I get there.”

“If you don’t have an objective, why do you want to go?” 

Had he really spent so little time around normal humans that he’s forgotten the inherent illogic of them? 

Something stirs in Peter’s gut, a strange mix of softness and exasperation. Like always, when he’s presented with two choices, Peter finds himself tempted by the worser one. He can’t help but put his hand to the flames; he loves being burned. “I just—oh my god. Look, I need to spend time outside of the mansion or I’ll lose my mind. I’m trying to leave in a  _ safe  _ way. Unless you’d like me to wait for when you’re taking a shit for me to climb out the window?” 

Barnes shrugs one shoulder and goes back to scrolling through his phone. 

Brown eyes narrow. If there’s one thing Peter does not like, it’s being ignored. It makes him see red, like blood is dripping down into his eyes. If you’re ignored, then you’re  _ ignorable _ . There is nothing ignorable about Peter B. Parker. 

“Shouldn’t you get a car for me or something?” Peter snaps. “Call me a cab?” 

“I’m your guard, not your servant,” Barnes says, his voice rough from disuse. 

Bust. Peter thinks for a long moment, chewing on his toast. At last, a smile spreads across his face. To his benefit, Barnes responds with a look of appropriate trepidation and scepticism. “That’s fine,” Peter says brightly, pushing away his empty plate. “I’ll get us a ride.” 

-

Tony’s garage is fourteen-hundred square feet and houses six cars and two motorcycles. (His garage beneath ground houses much less legal and savory things, but Peter can’t open  _ that  _ with a press of the automated door opener) Barnes doesn’t look equipped to withstand the sunlight dressed in a black leather jacket that probably conceals far too many weapons and black fitted pants that appear too tight to conceal anything. Though judging by the organic bulge there, he’s certainly packing heat in a way that Peter would appreciate—

Peter opens the third garage door and Barnes squints into the darkness making out the shape of the Aston Martin One-77. It’s a beautiful car, almost supernatural with the allure it holds over most people, luring them in like fish to a pretty tackle. Barnes steps inside without being ushered by Peter. One hand reaches out to hover over the glossy surface as though he doesn’t dare touch it. 

“You like?” Peter asks smugly. 

“We’re not taking this,” Barnes says at length. 

“Excuse me?” 

“You don’t know the meaning of the word inconspicuous, do you, kid? You’re supposed to be laying low until Toomes is taken care of.” 

“Come on. It’s New York City. Conspicuous is the new inconspicuous.” 

Barnes doesn’t look impressed. “No.” 

Peter prepares to argue but just manages to stop himself, gritting his teeth.  _ Pick your battles, Pete _ , he tells himself. It’s no use dying on this hill. Not when he’s sure that he’ll find a much more satisfying hill to die on later in the day. He takes a deep breath in, holds it to the point of pain, and then lets it all out silently. “Fine,” he says at last. “We’ll take the Cadillac. Happy?” 

“Thrilled,” says Barnes with all the joy of a pallbearer. 

“You’re driving,” Peter says, plucking the keys off of their designated hook. He tosses them and Barnes catches them easily, the bastard. He’s so unflappable. Peter has no idea what it will take to get a reaction from him, but he can hardly wait to find out. 

After adjusting all the mirrors and seats (Peter takes note of how far back the man has to adjust the seat to accommodate legs that are inches longer than Tony’s) Barnes sits stoic behind the wheel, unmoving. 

“Any day now.” 

“Put your seatbelt on.” 

“Are you kidding me? I’m not twelve.” 

“ _ Put. On. Your. Seatbelt. _ ” 

“ _ Make. Me _ ,” Peter mocks. It’s worth it when Barnes reaches out faster than Peter can blink, wrapping a gloved hand so tightly around the seatbelt strap that hangs beside Peter’s neck that the leather of his glove creaks. The scent of leather and oil in Peter’s nose nearly makes his eyes roll back before Barnes pulls his arm back towards the console, jabbing the seatbelt into place. 

“Safety first,” Barnes snarks. 

Turns out, it’s a good fucking idea: safety. 

While he drives them from the secluded suburban house into the city, he breaks every traffic law known to man. Maybe he’s doing it to frighten a reaction from Peter, but if so, he’s going about it in all the wrong ways. Peter is a total adrenaline junkie. The swoop in his stomach he feels at every descent over a hill, the way his body is pressed to one side or another when Barnes makes a turn at double the recommended speed—all it does is take his breath away, make his head spin. 

When they begin to enter the city, Barnes is forced to adhere to more conventional traffic laws, but Peter is already looking forward to the drive home. He glances at the older man’s profile, not bothering with subtlety. Sunlight lights up the edge of him, emphasizing the perfect slope of his nose and the defined jaw. 

“What?” Barnes asks. 

“ _ What _ , what?” 

“You’re staring at me.” 

“You’re hot. Sue me.” 

Barnes lets a sarcastic breath come out his nose. Peter takes the lack of response as a chance to turn fully in his seat, the belt straining across his chest. “What?” Peter asks. “Has no one ever told you that before?” 

“Told me what?” 

“How hot you are.” 

“Is this a real question?” Barnes wonders, face expressionless, voice unwavering. 

“Very real. When’s the last time someone told you that you were hot?” 

“About thirty seconds ago.” 

“God, you’re no fun,” Peter says. “You’re like Steve Rogers Junior or something. Turn up here onto the one-way. I want to go to Brookfield Place.” 

No matter the time of day, everything is always busy in Manhattan. The mall is no exception, and Barnes has to go up three different floors before he finds a satisfactory spot in the parking garage. Going into the mall with the other man is a downright surreal feeling. Peter can’t help but wonder what they look like together: Barnes’s hulking, gothic mass and Peter’s petite, borderline-preppy figure. But if Peter thought that he would get the chance to interact with Barnes here, he was mistaken. The man cuts away from Peter and disappears among the sea of bodies, probably to do something like maintain a superior vantage point. Despite being amongst so many people, Peter feels the keen sting of loneliness. 

He hates when Tony spends so much time working. 

Determined to make the best of his time, he stops by Davidoff’s and buys the cigars Tony likes. There’s a lighter too that catches his eye: S.T. Dupont, brushed palladium. Peter doesn’t know much about lighters except that he loves the way they look in Tony’s hands, the way he opens them with sure, practiced fingers. 

Feeling a little cheerier (spending money has that effect on him, maybe a side effect from so many years of poverty in Queens, but Peter’s no therapist) he crosses over to the new Louis Vuitton store. Tony doesn’t step foot here—it’s  _ ultra-gauche _ to him, and Peter finds a giddy little thrill in being surrounded by clothes he knows Tony would make a sour face at. He picks a few items that are the least offensive and steps into a private luxury fitting area. 

When he steps out of the fitting room to test his stride in the tight denim pants, Barnes is sitting in one of the chairs with his ankle resting on his knee. He looks out of place among the luxury and colors. 

“What are you doing here?” Peter wonders. 

“I can’t keep eyes on you when you’re in a fitting room,” Barnes says around a scowl. “Stick to the open areas.” 

“What’s the use of going to the mall if I can’t try on clothes?” 

“I’m not seeing the use of being here at all,” says Barnes, tucking one leg up to rest his ankle on his knee. Peter grits his teeth. It isn’t fucking fair that the guy is so attractive and repulsive all at the same time, that he has a body Peter wants to worship but an attitude that makes him want to take the elevator up to the top floor of the mall and jump off. Splat. 

Peter ducks into the fitting room without a word and tugs on his clothes in a cold fury.  _ I’ll show him _ , he thinks, tucking his shirt into pants. Anyone who tries to fit a collar around Peter’s neck finds that he’s not afraid to pull on the leash, even if it’s a bad idea, even if it chokes himself. Barnes will see.

When he comes out dressed, Barnes lifts both eyebrows. 

“I’m going to go and get a shirt to match those pants.” 

“No,” Barnes says, slowly, like Peter is a child. “We’re leaving.”

“One more shirt, and I’ll go without a fuss.”

Barnes weighs his options, gray eyes flickering from side to side while he thinks. At last, he says, “Be quick, kid. Or else.” 

As soon as Peter is free of the fitting room, he turns towards the doors of the store and begins to walk briskly. Once he’s free of the store itself, he lets himself jog to the escalator. He goes up to the top floor to throw Barnes off in case he’s already looking, ducking into the stairwell and then sprinting down them to the ground floor, narrowly avoiding bumping into a man counting his change at the vending machine. 

The feeling inside him is like euphoria. It’s the way he felt in the car with Barnes behind the wheel taking turns at ninety miles per hour. He imagines that he can already hear the pounding of boots behind him, but when he turns around, there is no one there. Barnes is probably just realizing that Peter made a run for it, and when he catches the younger man ( _ when _ , Peter notes distantly, even in his mind he knows now that he will never be able to escape the man, he is always the rabbit running just out of reach of the dog’s jaws) the punishment—well Peter can hardly imagine what he’s in for. 

Peter comes out of the mall and into the sunlight. He turns away from the parking garage and begins to stroll down the street, hoping to god no civilians passing by take note of his half-hard cock. Heart pounding, Peter glances back over his shoulder, looking for a figure dressed in black and towering over the others, but there is no sign of the assassin—

Until a hand grips his wrist and pulls him into an alleyway. 

The breath goes from Peter’s lungs and for a moment he feels true fear. He goes for his strap but the figure knocks him off balance, urging him further into the darkness and away from any prying eyes who might glance down the alley. A body presses him into the brick wall of the building, skewing his sunglasses. 

The hand that rests palm flat on the bricks beside Peter’s face is gloved in black leather. 

“You think this is fucking funny?” Barnes whispers hotly into Peter’s ear. 

“Maybe not  _ funny _ , but I’m having a good ti—ow, fuck, watch it!” Barnes grabs the sunglasses and crushes them in his hand, glass littering the ground. “You asshole! Those were four hundred dollars!” 

The pressure against his back increases until he struggles to take in a breath. Gasping for air, Peter grabs at the wrist beside his face, struggling to make known his urgency. All at once, Barnes turns him around so they face each other, the back of Peter’s head thudding against the brick wall. He grits his teeth against the pain and goes to knee the taller man in the balls. But it’s a move Barnes has been expecting, kicking Peter’s legs apart and planting himself between his thighs. 

The position is more than intimate. There’s no way Barnes can’t feel Peter’s erection, pinning his pelvis to the wall the way he is. Their chests brush with every breath, and one of those strong, leather clad forearms presses against Peter’s throat, a threat that has his blood singing. 

“ _ Do you want to die? _ ” Barnes asks him through his teeth. “Because this is how it happens. By not listening to me. By running from me. Tony told me you were smart, but all I see is a little boy playing grown-up games. It’ll break your  _ daddy’s  _ heart when Toomes gets his hands on you, and who do you think he’s going to blame? His brainless little baby? Or  _ me _ ?”

It’s a good thing Barnes’s arm cuts off Peter’s ability to speak, because at least that way he can blame it on anything but the shame he feels, the embarrassment that ties his tongue. He struggles and writhes more out of instinct than real hope of escape, and during one undulation, his stomach brushes against a distinct hardness. 

Peter freezes, eyes wide. Barnes’s eyes expand fractionally before narrowing even more, his jaw working as he grits his teeth. Arching more, Peter makes contact again. Barnes pulls him away from the wall for just an instant before jerking him back in admonishment. The rough bricks catch his hair and make his head ache, but it’s secondary. It’s all secondary. 

Because Barnes is  _ hard _ . 

Peter begins to laugh. Even when the forearm pressed against his throat presses forward maliciously until no more noise can slip past his lips, Peter can’t stop shaking. Head spinning, Barnes gives him space to breathe before he can slip into unconsciousness and Peter gasps for air only to give it up again in laughter. 

_ Winning  _ is so fucking sweet.

“I finally got a reaction out of you,” Peter rasps, eyes wet from the hilarity of it all. He bends at the waist, gagging, working to catch his breath. The whole time, Barnes watches with an expression that Peter can’t deduce, head tilted as if Peter is some microbe beneath a microscope that needs further studying. 

“Oh,  _ right _ ,” Barnes says at last, mouth curling upwards cruelly. He takes a step back to lean against the opposite brick wall, lounging there in a way that looks far too comfortable. Doubt sprouts in Peter’s mind and sours the joy of his victory. Whatever is brewing behind Barnes’s empty, smug eyes isn’t something Peter’s going to like. “I forgot. About your self-esteem issues.” 

That sucks the last bit of laughter from Peter’s lungs. “Excuse me?” 

Barnes crosses his arms. At length, he says, “Yeah. You know. How you correlate your own self-worth with the number of people who are sexually attracted to you. How if nobody has a hard-on looking at you, then you feel like shit. Because you  _ are  _ shit. That what you needed, kid? Needed to feel like more than just a poor orphan from Queens who sucks a powerful man’s dick to get affection and protection?” 

Peter’s blood boils. He feels himself shaking, fists clenched tight at his sides. For a moment, he thinks about drawing his concealed carry and pointing the barrel right at Barnes’s pretty fucking face just to see the smug expression drain from it. “You’re just talking out your ass right now because  _ you  _ have a hard-on for me. Must suck being human like the rest of us!” 

They’re both hitting new lows, finding cracks in the armor of the other person, because Barnes’s face twists into fury and he pushes away from the wall until they are nearly chest to chest again (and the size difference, Jesus, Peter has to look up at the guy, and that doesn’t even speak to how broad the other man is, bulky where Peter is lithe and willowy). Through his teeth, Barnes wonders: “ _ What do you want from me? _ Jesus, if I knew you’d be such a fucking brat, I never would have taken this goddamn job!”

Peter pokes a finger into that broad, hard chest. “Right now? I want you to admit that you want to fuck me!” 

Barnes grabs him by the shoulder and shoves him back into the wall, pulling Peter upwards so that when he presses their bodies together, their cocks meet. Both of them are still hard. “Fine,” he snarls, breath wafting over Peter’s face. “I want to snap you in half from fucking you so hard. I jerked off last night wondering which I’d like more, to cum in your ass or all over that smart fucking mouth. Listening to you and  _ your daddy _ fucking made me harder than I’ve been in my entire life. Is that what you want? Is this what you want?”

“Yes,” Peter chokes, eyes rolling. His hips thrust even though there is no space, even though the man is front of him is as yielding as the brick wall behind him, the pressure on his cock making stars burst in the back of his brain. “Yes, I want it all,  _ I want it all _ .” 

Barnes drops him. The loss of contact has Peter’s head rushing. The man leans forward until their faces are inches apart, close enough to kiss if they so wanted, and for a moment Peter’s eyes even flutter only to be dropped back into reality when Barnes speaks: “But it’s never going to happen. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever. This is my job. The last guy who fucked you on the job got himself killed, and I’m not looking to follow in his footsteps.” 

Peter is left gaping as Barnes steps back to put space between them again. It had all seemed so close, but now it had slipped through his fingers like sand in a clenched fist, like water down a drain. His mouth opens but no words come out. No words. 

“Get over it, Peter,” Barnes says solemnly. “And quit trying to get the both of us killed.”


	4. Chapter 4

The dining room table is far too big for two, but Barnes refuses to join them for dinner. He takes up residence in the doorway leaning against the frame, his eyes on his phone. Earlier in the day, Pepper had received an anonymous threat via snail mail that had everyone on high alert. Since it was impossible to tell by the ambiguity whether the letter was in connection with Toomes or just with her work at Stark Industries in San Francisco, no immediate quarantine measures were being taken. 

Apparently Tony’s mother was so far off the map in Italy that her own security detail had spent the last three days just trying to find her. Tony had laughed and cursed in equal measure, surrounded by anxious men who couldn’t decide whether to laugh as well or apologize. Afterward, Tony and Peter had spent time in their room unwinding, and that was when he had given the man every last detail about his day. The car. The mall. Running from Barnes. The alley. Tony had listened, thoughtful. He’d stalked to the window and looked out over the grounds, and Peter (not for the first time, not even that day) regretted having such a big fat mouth. 

Tony had enough on his plate without adding Peter’s bullshit. 

Enough on his plate, including the vegetarian tabbouleh salad with edamame and feta that they’re having for dinner. It’s so rich with pesto that just the scent of it makes Peter’s stomach grumble eagerly. Tony selects the wine because Peter knows nothing about wines (“Your palate needs work, sweet thing,”) and pours a generous glass only to place his hand across the top before Peter can pick it up. The message is clear: wait. 

Tony takes his seat, unbuttoning the top button on his suit jacket. He unfolds his dinner napkin, but before Peter can touch his fork, he speaks: “Barnes.” 

“Yes, Mr. Stark?” 

“Come and take Peter’s seat.” 

There is no invitation. It’s an order. Peter finds himself slipping from his chair and standing awkwardly beside it while Barnes crosses the room with slow, thoughtful steps. He brings with him the scent of leather and cologne. It makes Peter grit his teeth. 

“Where am I supposed to sit?” Peter asks. He tacks on at the end, “Sir?”

Tony points to the space between his chair and Barnes’s. To the floor. 

“But it’s tabbouleh salad night,” Peter whines. 

“I won’t repeat myself,” Tony says. His tone rumbles over Peter like thunder, makes the hairs on his arms stand on end and his head bow. As embarrassing as it is, Peter moves to kneel on the hardwood floor, sitting back on his heels. Tony’s hand cards briefly through his hair before returning to his fork. “Please,” he says to Barnes. “Eat.” 

Barnes, who ‘hadn’t been hungry’ ten minutes prior, is no idiot. He picks up the fork. 

“Peter told me about your eventful day together,” Tony says. Barnes just nods, the movement visible from the corner of Peter’s eye. “And now I want you to tell me your version of the events.” 

“You left at a quarter ‘til seven. Peter slept until nine in the morning. Breakfast at nine-thirty. We left for the mall in the black Cadillac before ten. Traffic outside Manhattan was typical. We made it to the Brookfield Place mall at eleven-thirty, where I parked at the—”

“I’m so tempted to let you go on,” Tony says. “I really am. I bet I could quiz you about anything from what Peter had for breakfast to what the license plate on the Cadillac was and you’d know every last detail.”

Barnes bows his head. 

“But I think we both know the parts I’m most interested in. Pick it up from inside the fitting room.” 

“I told him to stay out of the fitting rooms from now on. He said that he wanted to grab a shirt to go with the pants he was wearing, and that if I let him, he’d come without a fuss. It was an error on my part. I factored thirty seconds for him to find and return with the shirt, but within ten, my phone pinged to say that he had gone further than twenty feet away from me—” 

Peter’s head snaps up. “You’ve been  _ tracking  _ me? Are you kidding? That’s such an invasion of privacy!” 

Tony grips Peter’s hair in his fist, close to the roots so that Peter can’t squirm away. With his other hand, he reaches out for his wine glass to take a generous sip. “You’re in enough trouble, Peter,” he says after he swallows. “Say another word without me explicitly asking you to and you’re looking at  _ astronomical  _ trouble, baby. The likes of which you’ve never seen. Understood?” 

“Yessir,” he murmurs, lowering his chin when Tony lets go of his hair. 

“Bucky—go on.” 

“I figured there were three options. He would stay in the mall, he would leave the mall for the street, or he would leave the mall for the car. I took my chances and went down to the bottom floor to head him off should he leave. Based on his rising elevation, he rode the elevator or escalators up to the top and then took the stairs down. He went out onto Vesey heading east. It wasn’t hard to cut him off.

“Once I did, I lost my temper. I broke his sunglasses. I pressed him against the wall and threatened him.” Barnes stops speaking. In the abrupt silence, Peter feels like everyone is holding their breath, waiting for confirmation of what they all know is coming.

“It’s okay,” says Tony, face no more expressive than a wall of stone. “Go on.” 

“He—pressed against me. And he felt it.” 

“Felt what?”

“That I was hard.” 

Tony hums. Barnes is no longer eating, just holding the fork in his hand with knuckles turning white. For a moment, Peter sees the knife with the silver handle clutched in Beck’s fist, the one they had melted down and destroyed afterward. He has to blink away the illusion. “And then what?” 

“I told him it would never happen and to give it up before he got us both killed.” Barnes pauses, and when Tony doesn’t fill the silence immediately, he asks, “Are you going to kill me?” 

Peter doesn’t believe that Tony would kill Barnes, but there is a seed of doubt in him planted by Beck’s betrayal and Peter’s own inexperience when it comes to strategy. His tongue feels thick and useless in his mouth, unsure whether he should speak up and try to save the man’s life (he doesn’t want Barnes  _ dead _ ) or stay silent and out of trouble.

“Only one thing will ever get you killed here,” Tony says. “And that’s betraying me. Are you going to betray me?” 

“No, Mr. Stark,” Barnes says. His shoulders lower a fraction, the only hint of his relief. “My loyalty—it runs deep.” 

“Loyalty to me or to Steve?” 

Barnes frowns. “Both.” 

“Loyalty to Peter?” 

Barnes gives Peter a glance where he kneels on his heels in his Armani outfit, stomach aching with hunger because tabbouleh is his favorite. Peter keeps his stare on the edge of the table, stomach doing rolls knowing that Barnes is looking at him. At last, the man nods. “Yes.” 

“If he wished for it, you could bend Peter over this table and eat his ass instead of this edamame, and I wouldn’t kill you for it.” 

“I’m—always grateful not to be killed.”

Tony laughs, the sudden noise startling a flinch out of both of them. “You really are hard to get a rise out of. No wonder Peter was so, ah, animated telling me about your time together in the alley. I think if I managed to get a reaction out of you like that, I’d probably do cartwheels.

“My point is that if a part of this...tension between you and Peter centers on fear of me?—that’s needless. Baseless. I knew from the day you volunteered in my office to watch him that you must have had an ulterior motive. I didn’t think there was anything in the world that could have parted you from Steve’s side, but there you were, begging him to let you go. I knew then, and I was fine with it. Peter is handsome, he is smart, he is fun. I’ve seen straight men get hard-ons for him. It’s nothing new, and if we’re having honesty hour?  _ I like it _ .

“You’re valuable to me, and I am not willing to lose you for any forgivable indiscretion. Understood?” 

“Yes,” Barnes says, voice raspy. “Thank you, Mr. Stark.” 

Tony smiles. “Call me Tony. Actually,  _ don’t _ , I like the way you say my name like that,  _ Mr. Stark _ . Fucking gold. Now,  _ Peter  _ on the other hand is in very big trouble. I had a long talk with him just the night before about how important it was to listen to your directions and follow any rules you laid down. Running away from you in a crowded public place definitely broke those rules, didn’t it?” 

“Yes.”

“Peter, apologize to Bucky.” 

“Sorry,” Peter mutters. 

Tony laughs as if Peter’s sulking insincerity is the funniest joke he’s heard all day. “That? That was just the preliminary apology, Bucky. You will be given a second and much more sincere apology as well, and he will keep apologizing until you see fit to forgive him. Understood?” 

“Yes, Mr. Stark.” 

Tony stands, the legs of his chair scraping against the hardwood floor. He removes his jacket and lays it gently over the back of his chair so as to minimize wrinkles. Peter’s eyes fall to the gun on his hip on instinct, even though he feels no fear from it. Next to come off are Tony’s cufflinks, two palladium rectangles that he sits beside his half-eaten plate. Both Barnes and Peter are entranced watching him roll up his sleeves to the forearms, revealing tanned, scarred skin. Those hands break men all the time, and tonight they are meant to break Peter. 

“Peter, Peter,” Tony sighs. “What the fuck am I going to do with you, kid? Give me an answer, just for giggles.” 

“Forgive me, sir?” Peter asks, showing every last tooth in a winning smile. 

“Of course, sweet thing,” Tony says, petting a fond hand through Peter’s hair. He grips it tight, like slapping away the softness of a kiss. “ _ Eventually _ . Now, stand up and drop your pants.” 

“What?” Peter gasps. His eyes flicker to Barnes who stares hard at the plate in front of him, fork still clenched in his fist. “What for, sir?” 

“For a spanking. What else do rotten little boys get?’ 

“In front of  _ him _ ?” 

“They were his rules you broke.” 

Peter shakes his head. The idea of Barnes seeing him that way is a delightful cocktail of embarrassing and arousing. He wants it and dreads it in equal measure, and for much the same reasons. Humiliating himself in front of people has more repercussions than just making his cock hard. It changes the way people see him.

Then the fear rolls off of him like water off a duck. Maybe he doesn’t want to give in. But a larger part of him wants to be  _ forced  _ to give in, and tonight, it’s exactly the thing he needs. Choices (he’s always fucking up these days, always making choices that get him in trouble or get him hurt) wrenched from his hands. Except that, for them to be taken away, he has to be holding on to them in the first place.

On the other side of the table, Tony plants his palms flat on the glossy wood, his eyes glittering because he  _ knows _ . Their safeword sits between them like a dish they know neither of them will touch. Not tonight. 

“No, sir,” says Peter, prolonging the inevitable. “I won’t.” 

“Would you like a choice?” 

His eyes narrow—Peter knows that when Tony gives a choice, it’s only because either will benefit him. His tone alone hints at a scheme, but begrudgingly, Peter nods. Curiosity killed the cat. 

“You can bend over this table and take a spanking.  _ Or _ ! You can sleep in the guest room tonight.”

_ Oh _ , he thinks as numbness prickles over his skin.  _ Right. Either Tony knows he will win either way, or one option is so terrible that he knows it won’t be chosen at all.  _

Spankings are barely punishments—both of them know that. Tony had to find a real way to discipline Peter many years ago, and the options are all loathsome to the younger man: spending time in the corner without acknowledgment, eating dinner separate from Tony, or sleeping alone in the guest room. In all their time together, Peter had never done something serious enough to warrant sleeping alone. The meaning is clear. This is the worst thing Peter has ever done—and this is the angriest with him that Tony has ever been.

Peter doesn’t bend to his will, he  _ breaks  _ to it.

His eyes prickle as he stands and unbuttons his chinos. He undresses with shaking hands, taking off the jacket to lay it over the back of the chair atop Tony’s and then slipping his pants down past his hips. Leaning forward, he puts his elbows flat on the table, choosing instead to look down at the swirling wood grain rather than stare Barnes in the eye.

“You don’t need to count them,” says Tony, putting a hand on Peter’s flank and squeezing gently. It’s tears on a pillow to Peter’s hurt, the knot in his chest that’s wound tighter than a fist. But he appreciates it. “You can make whatever noise you need to, including your safeword . Understood?”

“Yessir,” Peter mumbles. His lips feel a little tingly, like when he gets stung by a bee. 

Tony begins a strong rhythm over the fabric of Peter’s boxer-briefs. Peter braces himself so the force of the spanks don’t have his elbows squeaking across the polished wood, and still he can’t bring himself to look up at Barnes. He doesn’t want to see himself being seen.

When Peter’s skin is warm and red, Tony tugs the boxers down. Across the table like this, Barnes can’t see any of the goods, not Peter’s cock (which is hard, though he’s hardly enjoying this, it’s nothing but a reflex thanks to the Terrible thought of sleeping alone poisoning Peter’s arousal) and not his ass, but still, Peter feels exposed. Even more so when Tony begins to speak, his sentences punctuated with spanks from the flat of his palm that crack like thunder in the large room. 

“You think I’m being unfair, sweet thing? Threatening you with the guest room?” Peter doesn’t answer or look up. With his head ducked down, at least if his eyes go misty, no one will be able to see. “I will do whatever it takes to make you see that there is a time for play and a time to be serious. You think one night apart would be rough? Imagine if Toomes took you. Killed you. Imagine how many nights both of us would spend alone then, Peter.” 

“Quit, please,” Peter says around the lump in his throat, eyes burning with imminent tears. He’s got that fuzziness in his brain, the kind that reduces his world down to only Tony. Tony, who he let down today. Who he is always, always letting down. “I get it now.” 

“You  _ don’t _ . I bring in my most capable man to watch over you; he agrees to put his life before your own, and you put him at risk in every way.  _ My fucking heart _ lives in  _ your  _ chest, and you put it at risk.” 

“I’m sorry,” Peter says through his chattering teeth. Tears drip from his eyes onto the wood beneath his face and he wants to reach out and smear them away with his hands, but he’s worried he won’t be able to support himself again. As it is, he feels them shaking, sapped of energy.

“Will you run again? Next time you’re bored, next time you’re scared, next time you have a few moments too long to think, are you going to run again?” 

“No!” Peter cries, his whole body shivering with the force of Tony’s strikes. The pain goes deeper than his skin, deep, deep inside him. One arm gives away, sliding against the glossy wood and he lets himself go, clothed-chest pressed flat to the table. He cradles his arms around his head and lets himself shake with tears inside his hiding place. 

But there is no hiding. Not when Tony presses flush against him, leaning over his bent form to take a handful of his hair and coax his head up from his arms. 

Directly in his line of sight is Barnes. The look on his face isn’t something Peter can identify. There is no pleasure there, but no disgust either. His brows are lower than ever while he watches, still as a statue, like a man trying to be polite at the strangest dinner-and-a-show. Tony uses his free hand to take one of Peter’s wrists in a gentle grip, and Peter realizes that Tony has spoken only for it to be lost. 

“Tell him you’re sorry, sweet thing,” Tony says again in his ear. 

“’m sorry, Mr. Barnes,” Peter says, tears dripping off his chin. He searches the other man’s face, looking for the forgiveness that he needs. It feels like life or death. 

But all Barnes does is nod and say, “Call me Bucky.” 

#

-BUCKY-

In the den, Bucky pours the drinks.  _ Help yourself to whatever you like, but grab me a whiskey neat, _ Tony says from his spot on the couch. Peter lays with his head in the man’s lap, dressed in nothing but his little see-through sweater and navy pants, the boss’s jacket thrown over him to keep him warm. The kid’s eyes are closed in rest though not in sleep, not for the way he shudders and sniffles. 

Bucky keeps his eyes on the glasses while he pours expensive whiskey for the both of them, but in his mind he sees the young man bent over the dining room table, the arch of his back, the defeated slope of his neck as he braced himself on his elbows and took a pounding from the flat of Tony Stark’s hand. It’s a sight he won’t forget. 

Something inside him has shifted now, maybe something that’s been shifting all along but slow, like tectonic plates moving against each other until an earthquake brings down everything. He won’t be able to look at either of those men the same. 

His hands don’t shake when he crosses the room to hand Tony his glass, not even when the man tilts his head back baring his throat and drains the two fingers’ worth of alcohol in one gulp that has Bucky’s mouth feeling dry. God, to put his lips against that throat, to suck livid bruises and leave the imprints of his teeth on that throat...

“Thanks,” sighs Tony. “I could use about a dozen more.” 

Bucky takes the glass back to the bar where he shrugs one shoulder and pours another drink. “It’s your whiskey,” he says. 

“Don’t enable me,” Tony says, half his handsome mouth lifting in a smirk. He takes the drink, one hand slipping warmly through the kid’s curls (and curls have no right looking so soft, Bucky thinks bitterly) before nodding towards the armchair closest to his end of the sofa. “Sit, will you? Peter won’t be up for conversation while he’s locked in like this. But I have something I want to discuss.” 

Bucky sits, hoping that the pounding of his pulse isn’t visible. 

Tony is right about Bucky having an ulterior motive for offering to guard Peter, but it doesn’t seem like the man has any clue about the real reason, about the effect the older man has on him. It was grossly self-indulgent and more than a little masochistic for Bucky to take a job just beneath the boss he has an unhealthy obsession with. 

And that was before he met the terror (the wild, beautiful terror) that is Peter Parker. 

“He’s special,” Tony says, stroking the hair back from Peter’s forehead. Bucky realizes that he’s been staring at the kid’s face, glass of whiskey unsipped in his hands. Wincing at being caught, he lifts the glass to take a generous drink, savoring the flavor. “Like holding a live grenade. I knew from the moment I met him, but I thought even then that if it all exploded in my face, it would have been worth it.” 

Bucky says nothing. He’s never experienced anything like that. 

“But I didn’t keep you here to wax poetry. The explicit information I’m about to tell you is information only three other people have—” Tony smiles, coldly. “And one of  _ them  _ is dead.” 

In his lap, Peter shivers where he’s feigning sleep, squeezing his eyes shut tighter. Maybe it’s easier that way. Bucky stands and goes to the closet where he knows the linens are kept (he knows every closet of this house, every nook and cranny). The blankets are the softest he’s ever touched, thick and rich. He drapes it over Peter and only notices at the end the tender, grateful look Tony is giving him. 

After he takes his seat again, Bucky says the name: “Beck.” 

Tony touches his nose with the finger of the hand that holds his whiskey. 

“Quentin Beck. Born in California. Moved to New York after a less than sensational acting career finally was pronounced dead. He came to me the same way all of you do: through a friend of a friend, through some relation or acquaintance who refers you to me. He was good at stealth and had a flair for creative liberty during the year he worked under Vis in the Bronx. When the time came for promotion, he was lifted through the ranks and had the chance to come and work here at the house. 

“Peter acted the way I would have expected Peter to. He flirts. Maybe his mother didn’t hold him enough as a child,” Tony says, smirking when Peter wrinkles his nose and pinches the man’s thigh. They all pretend not to see it. “But he craves the attention and the flattery. He’s always had my permission to find enjoyment when and where he can—I’m a busy man, and not nearly as young as I once was. But it seemed like every time someone began to return his, ah,  _ affections,  _ Peter would lose interest. 

“Beck was the first to keep him enthralled. He was handsome enough. Sometimes, I would walk in on them kissing like teenagers, and getting caught just seemed to make Peter burn hotter. He wanted me to watch. I  _ wanted  _ to watch. We spent so many nights fucking and talking about it; we built it up in our minds, the way we expected it to go.” 

Tony pauses, and Bucky finds that he’s been leaning forward more and more, entranced by the story. After Tony’s injury and Beck’s death, there had been much speculation about what had happened. The basis was obvious and well known: Beck had fucked Peter, and Tony had killed him. But in the details—that’s where the devil is. That’s where Bucky is right now, lost. 

_ Beck, you lucky son of a bitch, _ Bucky thinks to himself.  _ You didn’t even know what you had, and you fucked it up.  _

“I made a mistake, though,” Tony says at length. In his lap where Peter lies with his eyes closed, the kid reaches out, looking for his hand to lace their fingers together. There’s no room there for Bucky’s hand, he thinks to himself. God, he’s fucked. “Whenever they were together, I was looking at Peter. And that meant that I never really saw Beck.

“The sex between them was poor. Maybe Beck was nervous, maybe Peter was too. Maybe he was too used to me and the tastes we’d, ah, cultivated together. Anyway, it was a bad show, and I could tell that Peter was disappointed. He hadn’t even cum before Beck was blowing his load—into a condom, of course. I wasn’t letting anyone fuck my boy raw. After they fucked, we were supposed to end it, but I couldn’t help myself. 

“Peter looked half-debauched. Hard, annoyed, naked on the bed we made together. Before I knew it, I was unbuckling my pants. Just the look in Peter’s eyes—God, I’ll never forget it. He knew what was coming. A  _ real  _ cock. A real man to fuck him within an inch of his life. I pressed his legs up, nearly folding him in half and then I gave him what he needed. He was just a little loose from Beck’s cock, no more than if I had opened him up with a few of my fingers. 

“The whole time, my mouth never closed. Fuck, the things I said to him. Asking him how it felt to be with a real man, asking him if he’d even felt Beck inside him, telling him how no one else could ever fill him up the way I did. It made me all the hotter to know that Beck was right where I left him sitting in the armchair, tugging on his clothes, ready to slip away and take his walk of shame. Peter looked fucked-out, his hands clutching the bedsheets, eyes squeezed shut and mouth open. But—! That was always my problem, wasn’t it? Whenever I was looking at Peter,  _ I should have been looking at Beck _ . 

“Maybe Beck was in love with him; I wouldn’t have put that past him. Peter is very easy to fall in love with. We didn’t factor that in, didn’t consider that Beck might not be up for sharing. I still remember Peter’s face when he saw Beck coming up behind us. I turned, and for a moment I thought he was trying to come and join us, can you believe it? I barely felt the blade. It struck my sternum and slid off the bone, down and away from my heart, piercing a lung. Beck had poor form.

“Peter was the one to crawl to the bedside table for his gun. Beck had dragged me from the bed down to the floor, and I think he was planning to finish me off—that was  _ his  _ mistake. He was looking at me when he should have been looking at Peter. The kid is only an okay shot with a handgun, but at close range, he blew Beck’s fucking head off. The end.” Tony’s hand pets at Peter’s hair, tracing the shell of his ear. “Kept pressure on the wound, too, until Bruce could get there and get me to one of the hospitals where I have pull. The kid saved my life.” 

“Jesus,” says Bucky. “That’s a hell of a story.” 

Tony smiles. “He’s a hell of a kid. I thought it was important of you to know all this. If you’re going to be afraid of anyone, you should probably be afraid of Peter. He’d kill for me. Won’t you, baby?” 

Peter hums. His eyes begin to flicker beneath his lids, thin mouth going lax as he drifts off into sleep. 

“We have that in common,” Bucky says without thinking.

“What’s that?” Tony asks. 

Bucky finishes his drink, stalling, trying to think of an explanation that doesn’t sound so fucking lovesick. When none comes and he’s stuck with the truth, he resigns himself to it. To how lame it sounds coming from his clumsy lips and in his rusty voice: “We’d kill for you.” 

Tony stares at him with an inscrutable expression, and for a moment Bucky thinks that he’s gone too far, made himself too obvious. Then it’s almost worth it for the way the man’s mouth slips up into a half-smile. So handsome it hurts, but it’s a good hurt, the kind Bucky would subject himself to again and again. 

“I’ll drink to that,” Tony says, holding out his cup in solidarity before draining his glass. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the wait. 
> 
> after a big mental breakdown last week, i'm not currently active on any social media. once I return this will be posted on tumblr @cagestark as well. feel free to come and visit me there. and as always, criticism is welcome.


	5. Chapter 5

A week later, Tony has business to attend to in Malibu. 

Peter distracts him while he packs, suitcases open and half-full on the bed. He plasters himself to the back of the man, rising up on his toes so that he can press his groin against the curve of Tony’s ass and grind suggestively. “Take me with you, sir,” Peter begs into his ear, wrapping his arms around Tony’s toned midriff. “We can spend all our time in the hotel, fucking.” 

Tony laughs, reaching for one of Peter’s hands to draw it down and press it against his own cock, still mostly soft. “I’ll be in meetings, kid.” 

He places a hot kiss against Tony’s neck, lips brushing skin when he says, “I’ll bribe you to skip them.” 

“And what about Bucky?” Tony asks. The man in question is outside their open bedroom door, leaning against the wall, ever vigilant. Peter glances over in time to see his head cock, turning just so to better listen to the conversation taking place. 

Since the day of the mall, a sort of calm-before-the-storm had befallen them. If he’d awoken the next morning expecting Bucky to treat him any differently, he was mistaken. Bucky was, for the most part, unchanged (though maybe sometimes his sharp retorts seemed less like attacks and more like banter, which was a pleasant evolution). If Peter’s ass hadn’t smarted something fierce for the next three days, he might have believed the entire thing was nothing but a dream. 

“He can watch,” Peter suggests brightly. “He’s  _ good  _ at that.”

There’s no way to tell with the man’s back turned, but Peter can  _ feel  _ when Bucky rolls his eyes. He’s got a sixth sense for when he’s getting under someone’s skin. 

Tony turns where he’s trapped in Peter’s arms. His eyes are dancing when he tucks Peter under his chin, cutting short the sexy dialogue and turning it tender. Typical Tony move, though it doesn’t happen often with his underlings around. Something about Bucky must be slipping past the man’s defences, and Peter can’t find it in him to complain about a more comfortable, natural Tony. 

“What’s this all about, Pete?” he asks. “You hate Malibu.” 

“I don’t have the legs to wear shorts,” Peter whines. He winds his fingers in Tony’s lapels, intending to hold him in New York physically if that’s what it takes. “I’m just going to miss you, is all. When you aren’t here, I’m bored.” 

Tony’s eyes flicker towards the doorway where Bucky stands. Smiling, he says, “I’m sure you’ll find something to keep you occupied.” 

“I’m going to jerk off for three days straight,” Peter says, throwing himself onto the bed. A pristinely folded pile of Ralph Lauren dress shirts topples over. 

“If you don’t stop, I’ll think that all you want me for is my cock,” says Tony.

“Have you  _ seen  _ your cock, sir?”

“That’s it, you little brat—” Tony lunges. Peter upends one entire suitcase diving off of the bed to avoid his touch. He fights to get his feet under him, adrenalin singing in his veins, and feels the brush of Tony’s fingers reaching for the neck of his shirt before Peter slips out of reach. Bucky has turned at the commotion and watches with a maternal disapproval, leaning with one hip propped against the wall and his arms crossed. 

Then he steps back further into the hall, reaches out with one foot and nudges the door shut. 

“ _ Traitor!” _ Peter shouts, mouth split wide in a grin.

The moment gives Tony the chance to slip an arm around his waist and hoist him up and back towards the bed. His mouth brushes Peter’s neck when he says, “He works for  _ me _ , kid. Don’t look so surprised that he’s on my side.” 

He deposits Peter flat on the bed, the bounce knocking several to-be-packed items to the floor. Tony stands over him, and fuck if he doesn’t seem so much taller than his five-foot-nine stature. Sometimes in their more tender moments together, Peter forgets just what the other man is capable of. But god, there is much pleasure in being reminded. Leaning over him, Tony pushes the last half-packed suitcase until it falls off the bed with a clatter that has Peter shaking. Removing his jacket, he tosses it back towards where there used to be an armchair—only now there isn’t. In his dress slacks is a bulge that has Peter’s pelvic muscles flexing in anticipation.

He reaches for his belt and tugs it free. Peter thinks he might be in for a spanking, until that belt hits the floor and Tony continues undressing, pulling that thick cock free. He assesses Peter with a frank stare. “Well, kid? You wanted it, didn’t you? It isn’t going to suck itself.” 

Peter slips off of the bed and onto his knees to let Tony seat himself on the mattress. He doesn’t need to be told how Tony likes it; that’s come from years of practice. Staring up at him through his lashes, Peter opens his mouth wide and lets the blunt head of Tony’s cock rest on his tongue, the familiar softness and hardness and warmth and smell and taste all filling up his head until it’s light like a helium balloon. When the man’s mouth twitches, fighting a smile, Peter lets his mouth close around it, his eyes falling closed in picturesque ecstasy as he suckles at it.

“What’s gotten into you lately, kid?” Tony wonders, threading his fingers through Peter’s hair. “You’re hornier than usual, and that’s saying something.” 

Peter pulls off to say, “Can’t help it. You’re so fucking hot. I’m thinking of it all the time.” 

Tony smiles, a mixture of fondness and pity that has Peter’s cock throbbing. His blunt nails scratch at Peter’s scalp in a way that makes him groan, and then Tony is guiding his mouth back to his cock. “I know, sweet thing. I  _ know  _ what has you so worked up—or should we just come out and say it?  _ Who _ .”

His gut clenches, cock jerking between his legs. Pushing himself forward, he lets himself gag on it, throat convulsing around the head of Tony’s cock before the urge becomes too much to fight through and he has to pull away. Tony loves it like this, messy and graphic, like if Peter doesn’t get to suck his cock, it might kill him. Sometimes, it hardly feels like an exaggeration. 

“Please fuck me, sir,” Peter begs under his breath after pulling off, laying his cheek against the inside of Tony’s knee. His chest feels tight, balls heavy, ass already clenching around nothing because he’s empty, so empty, and nothing ever fills him up like Tony. “I need to get you in me. Please?”

Tony lets out a shaky breath through his nose, the only sign that he’s affected at all by Peter’s pleads. Nodding his head, he says, “Bend over the bed, Pete. I know what you need.” 

Peter’s fingers feel useless and thick, scrabbling at the button on his jeans until Tony helps, hands steady and gentle. Those hands are large enough that Peter’s entire cock nearly disappears when the older man palms at him, giving him a firm, warm place to thrust into. Neither of them have any more than their pants shoved down past their knees but Peter feels stripped to his skin when Tony presses flush against him, a mimicry of the way they were just minutes before. 

“Come on,” Peter gasps, feeling Tony’s naked cock rut against him from behind. He arches his back into a tantalizing bow. “It’s been, like, two whole days or something—” 

Tony laughs into the curve of Peter’s neck. His long fingers wrap around Peter’s hips, holding him in place while he thrusts against him. “Two days since we fucked. But when’s the last time you had those greedy fingers inside of yourself?” 

“This morning,” Peter admits, flushing. 

“I thought you took longer than usual in the shower. How many fingers?” 

“I had to condition!—and two, sir.  _ God, please— _ !” 

Tony hushes him, pressing him forward with a hand at the center of his back until he’s bent in half, exposed and waiting. He leaves Peter there, rutting his cock against the six-hundred thread count sheets while he gets the lube from inside the bedside drawer. Peter turns his head to watch as Tony slicks his cock, taking a moment to jerk himself off. 

The sight of it makes him feel like fire is just under his skin, makes him give out a long, low, “ _ Fuuuck _ .”

His older lover’s eyes crack open, mouth quirking slyly. Once behind him, he feels Tony spread him open and then the blunt head of his cock presses forward, docking against Peter’s opening and stealing the last of the breath from his lungs. “I hope you’re still a little loose, kid,” Tony says, gripping Peter’s hip. “Because this morning is all the prep you’re getting.” 

When he thrusts in, long and slow and deep, a similar sound comes from Peter. Peter has always been vocal during sex. Tony is similar, although in a more eloquent way; his dirty talk could melt the tar on a country road. Peter is monosyllabic at best, completely inarticulate at worst. Groans rip from his throat as he scrabbles at the bedsheets, clutching them between his spasming fingers. Tony wraps an arm around his waist, the firm bar of his forearm resting just above Peter’s neglected cock so that he can pull him backwards into short, hard thrusts that Peter can feel all the way in his throat. 

“ _ Ohmygod _ ,” Peter cries. “Don’t stop, don’t stop,  _ never  _ stop—” 

Pulling Peter’s upper half up until they are chest-to-back, he whispers in Peter’s ear, “You know he can hear us out there, don’t you sweet thing?” 

The noise that comes from Peter is hardly a cognizant answer, but Tony is fluent in it. He laughs a little. “Yeah, you do. You know it. More than likely he can’t make out what I’m saying, but your every little noise must come loud and clear through that door, baby boy. Are you putting on a show for him, Pete? You want him to hear how good your daddy gives it to you? Say it. Say it so he can hear—say,  _ yes daddy _ .”

“ _ Yes, daddy! _ ” 

“Fuck, that’s perfect. Me too, kid, me too,” Tony admits. His thrusts are already coming more sporadically, like the thought of Bucky listening in itself is driving him wild. He slips his hand free from Peter’s grip and guides it to his lover’s neglected cock. Just the simplest touch feels like electricity, and he doesn’t know whether to thrust into the firm grip or to arch his back deeper, to open himself up more. Tony continues on, muttering in Peter’s ear: “Is it bad that I want him to walk back through that door and see you like this, half-naked and leaking all over my fist? Or at night lately when we fuck, I’m thinking about the best ways to get you to scream so that he might hear it through the wall? Don’t think about him lying there at night trying not to touch his cock to us, it will just drive you crazy, kid, it will—” 

Every muscle locks tight in Peter’s body as he cums. His body spasms, and he’d fall right off Tony’s cock if the other man didn’t have such a firm hold on him, pulling him back into his rutting thrusts again and again, giving him nowhere to run nor hide. Every thrust rubs the length of Tony’s cock against Peter’s prostate causing his cock to jerk and spit and his body to shudder from the stimulation. Still, Tony never stops jerking his cock, never stops those deep thrusts, and Peter feels an orgasm begin to crest in him again, equal parts painful and pleasurable. Synonyms, he thinks.  _ It’s the same fucking thing, _ and then he cums  _ again— _

When his awareness returns, he’s on his back. Tony kneels on the mattress between his spread legs, cleaning him with a washcloth just warmer than his body. 

“God, what did you do to me,” Peter whines, slapping weakly at Tony’s hands. 

“Be lucky Bucky didn’t burst in here. I’m sure he thought I was killing you, with the way you were shouting,” Tony says. 

“You  _ were  _ killing me. You did kill me. I’m dead, sir.” 

“Had to give you something to remember me by, didn’t I?” 

“Call me every day that you’re gone and I’ll tell you again. No,  _ twice  _ a day. And text me during the meetings.” 

“Can do, sweet thing. Have fun with Bucky while I’m gone, alright?” Tony wiggles his eyebrows to clarify his meaning, like Peter’s mind doesn’t perpetually live in the gutter. Like 90% of his day isn’t spent thinking about riding one of their cocks or the other. 

Peter rolls his eyes. “I don’t think he knows the meaning of the word fun, sir.” 

Tony just smiles, hoisting one suitcase off of the floor and beginning to replace its contents. 

  * *



Bucky watches Tony put his suitcases into the trunk. Leaning against one of the posts of the veranda, he can’t help but acknowledge the pleasing picture that the kid and Tony make together. They’re both unfairly attractive. Dark haired and dark eyed, but Tony’s tanned skin sets them apart. Peter is all paleness and vitamin D deficiencies where he leans up against the older man, pressed tightly against that expensive suit without a hair's breadth between them. 

_ Fucking idiots _ , Bucky thinks to himself. If he had someone like that (or a couple of someone’s like that), someone he cared for and loved, he’d never let them out of his fucking sight. But that’s why he’s here: so that Tony  _ can  _ let Peter out of his sight without worrying about what might befall him. 

From this distance, he can’t hear what the two are saying to each other, but it’s punctuated with a lot of soul-deep kissing that makes his cock twitch. He changes his point of gaze and looks out towards the gate that Tony will drive out of any minute. 

Something flashes and draws his eye—Tony’s watch catching the light as he gestures Bucky over with two lazy fingers. 

Stomach rolling (in the best, worst way), he walks down to where the car sits, boots crunching in the gravel. 

Tony is stunning in the sunlight, glasses pushed up and away to reveal his eyes. They’re like amber, ready to trap Bucky inside them and keep him preserved there for a hundred thousand years.  _ Gladly _ , Bucky thinks. Beside him, tucked into his side, Peter intently examines the edge of the property line, mouth red from being kissed and bitten. 

“It goes without saying that you’re in charge while I’m gone and that you’re free to exercise any executive decisions that might need made to keep Peter safe, understood?” 

“Yes, Mr. Stark.” 

Tony smiles, showing white, straight teeth that Bucky’s tongue has begged to taste. In these last two weeks, Bucky has seen the man smile more than he had in years of working for him. He holds out a hand, and it takes Bucky two seconds too long to realize that Tony means for him to shake it. Heart in his throat, he clasps that warm palm not quite as broad as his own, taking care to hold firm but gentle. “Bucky, I can’t thank you enough for volunteering to keep Peter safe. Hiccups aside, I think you’ve done an incredible job.” 

“The whole damn kid is a hiccup,” Bucky mutters, hoping that the stirring of fondness he feels inside his chest doesn’t transfer to his face. Peter scowls, flipping Bucky off behind Tony’s back. Without looking, Tony flicks the kid’s neck. The both of them laugh at Peter’s indignant,  _ ouch!  _ which only increases the storminess of the younger man’s expression. 

“A hiccup. Well, that’s putting it nicely. My hiccup,” Tony admits, one side of his mouth quirking up. He uses a fond hand to ruffle Peter’s curls into a riotous style that mimics bedhead, and the kid melts into him. Then Tony’s voice drops low into a sensuality that Bucky is neither used to nor prepared for: “Yours, too, if you’d like.” 

Bucky blinks, slow, retracing the conversation to see if there was something he missed, like a line skipped in the eager reading of a book’s page. On instinct, he feels his breathing grow shallow while he struggles not to make any secondary movements, to give away any tells. “What’s mine, Mr. Stark?” 

“Peter, of course. I want you to know that while I’m gone, you can make use of him in any way you and he see fit. What is that Spanish phrase?  _ Mi fucktoy es su fucktoy? _ No? Well, I’m better versed in Italian—anyway, it might be the only way to keep him out of trouble; he’s an insatiable creature.” 

“I prefer  _ cumslut _ , sir,” Peter says. “Fucktoy dehumanizes me.” 

“You’re right, pumpkin, I’m sorry—”

“Wait,” Bucky interrupts. His mouth is dry, lower gut clenched tight at just the thought of what the man is offering to him. Offering his own lover, like Peter  _ is  _ nothing but a fucktoy, like Peter is nothing but an amenity that Bucky can take advantage of, no better than room service or fresh towels at a hotel. Only  _ way  _ fucking better than room service, he thinks, looking at the heavy-lidded expression on the young man’s face. God, none of this perversity should turn Bucky on as much as it does. “When you say make use of him—?” 

“Fuck him. Suck him off. Have him suck  _ you  _ off. Peter can suck your soul out through your cock if you’ll just let him.” Tony puts a warm hand on Bucky’s shoulder. He feels it through his jacket, his shirt, his skin, right down to the bone. The man squeezes in a soft, friendly way. “I know that last time we discussed the idea I called it a,  _ ah _ , forgivable indiscretion? But I think it’s clearer, now; you’ve earned it, Bucky.” 

Jesus Christ. Bucky has to work not to grind his jaw. Why are these two so committed to taking Bucky apart? They’re specially shaped tools, perfect for weaseling into the cracks in his armor and digging deeper.  _ Deeper _ . He feels on the verge of madness, jerking his cock at every available moment to keep from letting the lust crowd his mind. But every time the kid makes a pass at him, every time Tony goes and  _ offers the kid up to him _ , Bucky feels that much closer to breaking. 

Maybe it’s inevitable. But Bucky hasn’t made it this far by breaking when the wind picks up. He plants his feet against the gale and resolves to stay that way—for however long he can.

“I won’t fuck the kid,” Bucky insists. He ignores the eye roll from the kid in question (that’s just Peter Parker, he’s learned. All eye rolls and sarcastic comments and rude hand gestures). Tony’s head tilts, like Bucky is a surrealist painting that will make sense if only he looks long enough. For a guy so good at strategy, at psychoanalyzing his enemies, Tony Stark sure doesn’t seem to know himself at all: the last thing he needs after what happened with Beck is Bucky fucking his boy. Desperate to be understood, he says: “You can trust me, Mr. Stark.”

Tony just lets out an even breath through his nose, reaching up to pull his glasses down and hide those whiskey-colored eyes. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> find me on tumblr @cagestark. Criticism is very welcome (encouraged, even).


	6. Chapter 6

“Ned, I’m saying this with all due respect, but where the fuck is your galaxy sword,” Peter mutters into his headset, thumb mashing the square on his controller. During a brief lull in activity, he sips at a bottled water open on the end table. Who knew that some brands of water tasted more like water than the water that used to come from the sink at his apartment in Queens? That water had tasted like pennies. Peter truly is living the life. 

“I lost it,” Ned says. 

“ _ Lost _ it, how do you lose a galaxy sword?” 

“Very, very carelessly.” 

“And you haven’t— _ goddamnit another floor with mummies, why aren’t my bombs on my hotbar? _ —you haven’t gotten another one  _ why _ ?”

“I’m not swimming in prismatic shards, Peter!” says Ned. “You know, when I said I wanted to co-op a more mellow game like Stardew Valley, I meant something a little more domestic. We could make a new farm together. Plant some parsnips. Get a dog— _ fuck me, fuck me, Iridium Crab! _ and the Fortune Teller predicted  _ pleased  _ spirits today? Pleased to see me die is more likely. This is doing nothing for my anxiety—” 

“Then let’s get the fuck out of here,” says Peter. Ever since he’d moved in with Tony and Ned had gone across the country to go to college, these game sessions were some of the only time the two boys could spend together. Tony was offering to fly them to see each other every chance he could, but with Ned’s hectic grad school schedule, only god knew when he’d ever be free again. Peter didn’t want to waste a moment of their time together playing something Ned didn’t like. “I want the farm, I want the picket fence, I want a pen full of chickens and cows and pigs. You want domestic, I’ll  _ give  _ you domestic.” 

Movement in the upper corner of his dark television while he exits to the loading screen. He turns around to see Bucky shifting against the wall, an expression on his face as close to amusement as he can get. Sometimes, Peter forgets he’s there. The guy is that quiet.

Peter is starting to feel  _ that  _ comfortable.

“Will you sit down or something?” Peter asks. “I feel like you’re some ghost perpetually waiting for me to turn around so you can scare me.  _ No, not you Ned, one sec. _ Just, come sit on the couch or something. It’s less creepy.” 

Peter turns back to the television, feeling his face redden. Their interaction in the driveway in the driveway earlier that day is still fresh in his mind.  _ Do you want me to say something to him, sweet thing? Plant the seed that he should keep you company while I’m gone? _ Tony had murmured into Peter’s ear, one hand reaching down to palm his ass.  _ I feel like a daddy trying to set up his boy for a playdate.  _

Peter had been simultaneously horrified and relieved. Less relieved at the stoic look on Bucky’s face at Tony’s offer, his insistence that nothing will happen between them while Tony is gone. Peter’s no quitter, but he can’t help but wonder if he isn’t chasing something that can never be caught. 

Bucky doesn’t move for a long moment, so long that Peter is sure that he won’t and consequently puts it from his mind—those parsnips aren’t going to plant themselves—but then he feels the change in the air as Bucky crosses the room in a handful of long, sure steps and takes a seat on the other cushion of the loveseat. Peter shifts over to give him more room, but they are still close enough that he can feel the obscene heat Bucky’s body throws off. It saps all the breath from him. And why the fuck are the guy’s thighs so thick? They’d be the perfect platform to straddle and grind on into oblivion. At his prolonged silence, Bucky lifts both of his brows in a challenging gaze. 

Clearing his throat, Peter looks away. 

“—roommate is back from class, so I have to get off.” 

“What?” Peter presses one palm to his headphone, like that will drown out the sight of Bucky which seems to stimulate every part of Peter’s brain and make it hard to do even unrelated tasks like hear. “Dude, we just started playing. Are you leaving me at the altar?” 

“The console is in the living room, man,” Ned whispers. “I don’t want to talk where people can hear me. Can we reschedule?” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Peter sighs. “Tony is out of town so I’m probably not going to sleep. Hit me up.” 

Ripping the headset off of his head, Peter lets it drop to the floor, watching as Ned disappears from their voice chat together. Out of the corner of his eye, Peter can see Bucky on his phone, texting. A perfect storm is brewing: boredom mixing with temptation, the electricity lingering in the air like the promise of thunder. He turns until he’s facing the assassin, lifting his legs up to put his socked feet in the other man’s lap. It says a lot about how far they’ve come that all Bucky does is roll his eyes, lifting his arms to text above Peter’s legs. 

“Bucky, I’m bored.” 

“Find something to do,” he mutters, thumbs moving furiously. The expression on his face might mean he’s responding to bad news—but for all Peter knows, maybe he’s reading about the sudden miraculous implement of world peace. With Bucky, it’s impossible to tell if he’s feeling displeasure or nothing at all. 

“My  _ something to do _ is in California.” 

“Call him.” 

“He’s in a meeting; he’s going to call me afterwards.” 

“What do you usually do when Tony’s gone?” 

“Jerk off and wait for him to come back.” 

“You need a hobby, kid.” 

“Says the guy whose hobby is following me around 24/7.” 

“That’s my  _ job _ , not my hobby,” says Bucky flatly. “Trust me, no one would follow you around for fun.” 

“Do you  _ really  _ want to see me when I’m bored?” Peter asks. He stretches and is suddenly hyper aware of how close his feet are to Bucky’s crotch. Compared to the larger man, Peter’s feet look downright dainty in his white Fendi socks. Bucky's hand could probably wrap itself entirely around one ankle with some room to spare. Even Tony must feel small compared to him—but maybe not. Tony is larger than life in many ways. 

“Do you really want me to see Mr. Stark spank your ass raw?” Bucky asks. “ _ Again _ ?”

Peter scowls, pointing his toes to dig them into the inside of Bucky’s thigh. “Quit treating being an asshole like it’s your job.” 

“That’s not my job,” says Bucky, grinning without mirth. “ _ That’s _ my hobby.” 

Groaning, Peter throws an arm across his eyes, unprepared for how long these three days without Tony might last. Phone pressed to his chest to wait for his older lover’s call, Peter lets himself daydream, thinking about all the ways he could be spending his time if Tony had taken him to Miami. Sure, Peter hates everything about the sun and the heat and the humidity, but Peter loves the impersonal luxury of hotel rooms, and he loves the amazing sex he’d likely be having in one right now.

Something touches his shin. He jerks, glancing around his arm to see that Bucky had relaxed his tense pose and let his forearm rest against Peter’s leg. The other man shifts, trying to find a more comfortable position in which he doesn’t touch the younger man, muttering,  _ Sorry _ . 

“’s fine,” Peter says, putting his arm back over his eyes. After a moment, Bucky’s arm returns. There’s nothing sexy about it. Literally, Peter shouldn't be able to find anything arousing about someone resting their arm on his fucking tibia, but it’s the first time Bucky has touched him—without tackling him. 

_ Progress _ , Peter thinks gleefully. 

Now there is no chance he could daydream about anything except Bucky. The tactical pants that likely conceal a variety of weapons, including one of the cock-shaped variety. The broad chest that Peter felt pressed flat against his back when they were in the alleyway. The strength he exudes, the domination. He shifts a little, feeling his cock stir. 

In Bucky’s lap, one of Peter’s heels drifts too close to his crotch and rubs against the distinctive bulge of his soft package. Bucky jerks, and it’s Peter’s turn to pull away. He keeps his arm over his eyes, his chest struggling not to heave as excitement thrums in his veins. His mouth falls open a little and he hopes that he looks to be on the verge of sleep. At the other end of the couch, Bucky doesn’t call him out. Waiting with baited breath, Peter makes himself count to one hundred before shifting again. This time when his heel brushes Bucky’s groin, it is distinctly  _ less  _ soft. 

He hears Bucky’s intake of breath. Fingers brush his socks while the man adjusts himself. Surely, Bucky can’t truly believe that Peter is asleep—he’s a legendary assassin on the east coast. Pulling the wool over his eyes must be next to impossible. Still, he offers no acknowledgement. This time, Peter makes himself count to two hundred before stretching a little, twisting so that his heel drags up the entire length of an undeniably hard cock. 

Peter’s breath catches when Bucky takes his ankle in a firm grip, stilling it. He can’t help the unhappy sound that comes out of his mouth—but Bucky  _ isn’t pulling him away _ . He’s just holding him still, the arch of Peter’s foot pressed against his cock. The sounds of the other man’s breaths are loud in the quiet of the room, but only because Peter himself isn’t breathing. Can’t breathe, not when he flexes to feel the grip around his ankle tighten. 

Then, beneath his touch, Bucky’s cock  _ twitches—  _

The phone on Peter’s chest bursts into wild buzzes. He gasps, jerking up into a seated position and the phone slips from his chest down into the couch cushions. For a moment, he doesn’t even reach for it; all he can do is take in the sight at the other end of the couch. 

Bucky has his head tilted back to rest against the couch cushions, his long dark hair having fallen back away from his face to give Peter a perfect view of the incredible profile, the straight nose, the eyes closed with lashes dark like ink against his cheeks, the mouth full and soft and just a little parted. Bucky’s chest rises and falls in a way that makes Peter think that he’s counting breaths, and the size of the bulge in his tactical pants has Peter’s teeth clicking shut, salivating on instinct.

Bucky turns his head slightly and lets his eyes crack open, the blue swallowed up with the darkness of his pupils. The gaze is challenging, and for a moment his hand tightens around Peter’s ankle before letting go entirely. 

With trembling fingers, Peter slips a hand between the sofa cushions and retrieves his phone just in time to answer Tony’s call. His voice is far too breathless when he says  _ Hello _ .

“Getting started without me, Pete?” Tony asks, voice low. With the volume turned up all the way on his phone, Tony’s voice is audible in the room even when he isn’t on speaker. 

“No, sir.”

“No? Then what has you sounding like a cheap phone sex operator?” 

“Just—my imagination getting away from me, I guess,” Peter says. And hey, it’s not entirely untrue. After the punishment he’d received earlier in the week, Peter isn’t eager to lie and meet the flat of Tony’s hand again, even if comparing the infractions would be apples to oranges. 

“One second, Pete, let me get into the Jag.” 

At the other end of the couch, Bucky is back on his phone. When Peter strains his neck, he sees security camera footage for all over the mansion, one of Bucky’s favorite things to cycle through when his hands have nothing better to do. The rise and fall of his chest is steady, his cock already growing softer whether it’s from lack of attention or through sheer willpower. 

That just won’t do.

Peter hears the soft sound of the Jaguar’s car door shutting, and then the phone clicks while security measures are enabled—tech to keep people from tapping the call as Tony switches to the car phone, tech to tint the windows. 

His legs creep back into Bucky’s lap. Bucky’s fingers hesitate in their rhythmic swiping, the muscles in his jaw tensing, but he doesn’t push Peter away. In for a penny, in for a pound, Peter figures. He turns so that he’s on his side and drags the ball of his foot from the bottom of that bulge in Bucky’s pants to the top, eyes glued to the handsome, angular face as the eyes slip shut, teeth clenching. 

“Tell me about this overactive imagination you have,” Tony asks in his ear. Beside him, Bucky shudders. On the phone, fabric rustles—maybe just Tony loosening his tie. But the older man was right about one thing: Peter does have a very vivid imagination. His mouth goes dry imagining Tony taking out his cock in the parking lot of a respectable business, safe knowing that no one walking by will be able to see, even if they press their faces against the glass. “I know how your brain gets carried away. Let daddy decide if it’s going to get you into trouble.” 

“What’s the only thing either of us have been thinking of lately?” Peter asks into the phone. 

On the other end, on the other side of the country, Tony hums. “Bucky,” he says. 

On the sofa, Bucky’s eyes open. He turns to look at Peter, eyes flickering between his face and the phone clutched in his hand. For once, his expression is easy to read, even if Peter doesn’t  _ understand  _ it: the lines between his brows, the narrowed eyes, the downturned mouth. What has him confused, Peter wonders, when Peter’s been nothing but obvious about his obsession over the guy?

“Yeah,” says Peter, narrowing his own eyes while his brain whirls and whirls. “I can’t help it.” 

“I know you can’t, sweet thing. Where’s he at? Nearby, no doubt?” 

“Yeah, he’s here.” 

“Am I on speaker phone?” 

“No, sir,” Peter says. The space between the truth and what Tony wants to hear is just wide enough for Peter to stand on. 

“And how are you getting along?”

“Not as well as I’d like, sir,” Peter snarks. 

Tony laughs. “I don’t want to hear a single complaint, kid. Not when you’ve got him all to yourself in that house and I’m stuck three thousand miles away in board meetings.” 

“Hey, we could be there with you,” says Peter. He presses down more firmly onto Bucky’s cock and revels in the breath that hisses out through the other man’s nose. The phone in his hand has gone dark from inactivity, clenched so tightly in one fist that Peter thinks it might shatter. “I  _ begged  _ to come. Remember?”

“I’d be getting even less done than I already am.” 

“Business not going well?” Bucky has given up on holding his phone, letting it slack in his hand though the other comes down to reinstate its death grip on Peter’s ankle. Everytime Peter drags the arch of his foot against the man’s cock, Bucky’s hand tightens like he’s torn between bringing the pressure closer or pushing it away altogether. Peter’s own cock is hard and aching, but it’s tolerable. For now.

“It’s going well enough. I’ve just been, ah,  _ distracted _ .” 

“Now whose imagination is getting carried away,” Peter breathes. Bucky’s hips jerk upwards, a tiny aborted thrust before he tightens the grip on his control, teeth gritting, but the brief crack in the man’s icy exterior sets Peter’s blood on fire. He presses his lips tight together, hoping that no whines slip past. Shifting the phone to hold it between his ear and shoulder, he lets his free hand down to palm at his cock. “Will you tell me about it, sir?” 

Tony hums. “Thinking about all the fun you and Bucky must be getting up to in my absence.” 

“Does that turn you on—daddy?” The words almost stick in Peter’s throat. While Tony loves the power trip of the title, not everyone is into the kink. The last thing Peter wants is for Bucky to be disgusted (or worse, to infantilize him). But Bucky has heard Peter call the man daddy before, heard it through the walls while they fucked with him stationed outside. That day in the alley, he’d mocked Peter for it. But watching the way the man’s neck go lax, his head slipping towards one side, Peter thinks that maybe he brought it up because he likes it. 

“You know it does, brat,” Tony says. His voice is low, a near growl. “Too long in those meetings and my mind goes wandering, thinking about coming home to find you and him tangled up in my sheets together. I doubt he’s ever sank his cock into a heat like yours, sweet thing. When you’re jerking off thinking about him, how does it go? Are you riding him, Pete?” 

“I think of it every way, sir,” Peter says. He wraps his hand around his cock as best as he can through his sweatpants, thumb finding the head so that he can tease it even while at the other end of the couch Bucky grinds his teeth and breathes through his nose like he’s trying not to commit a murder—or cum in his pants. 

“You’ve got too much time on your hands.”

“Yeah, yeah, I need a hobby. Keep talking, please,” Peter asks, slipping a hand beneath the band of his sweats. Bucky turns his head, eyes dark slit that narrow in on the shape of his hand jerking himself off beneath the fabric. He bares his teeth in a hiss, like an animal on the verge of striking out. The risk of being bit only turns Peter on more, feeling the way his cock jerks and spits beneath his palm. 

“Are you touching yourself, sweet thing?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“ _ Hands off. _ ” 

Peter makes an indignant noise, hand stopping its motion though he doesn’t pull it from his pants, loathe to end the contact that feels so good. “Come on, Tony!” 

“ _ At-at! _ ” Tony tsks. “You heard what I said. Leave that cock alone.” 

“Or what, sir?” Peter grumbles. His thumb drags across his head and he shivers. Some rules are worth breaking, no matter the consequences, he thinks. This ache inside him has been building since he first made eye contact with Bucky on the other side of the dining room table. Not giving in would take herculean effort, and Peter is hardly known for his self-control, not when for the last several years, he hasn’t had to have any. 

“I’ll lock you in a cage and let Barnes be in charge of the key. There’d be no sweet talking him to get out early, would there, Pete?” 

Peter groans at the thought, and Bucky seems to react to it too, his head falling back to thump against the headrest of the couch. His chest rises and falls in a tempo just short of heaving. The sight of him, aroused, possibly struggling for control—it’s the last push Peter needs to begin resuming touching his cock. Cage be damned. It’s always better to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission anyway. 

But before he can blink, the hand around his ankle strikes out and grabs him around the wrist. Bucky wrenches Peter’s hand from his sweatpants (the band snapping against his abs narrowly avoiding the head of his cock) and pins it to the couch. Peter cries out a little, struggling against the grip on instinct, desperate for contact back where he’s aching, but fighting against Bucky is like pushing against a brick wall. 

“Let me go,” Peter whispers away from the phone, barely moving his mouth. 

Bucky’s eyes narrow and his grip only tightens, bordering on painful (like  _ that’s  _ going to do anything to the situation in Peter’s pants except fan the flames higher). Not one to give up easily, Peter uses his other hand to reach down. Bucky pushes Peter’s feet from his lap and drops to the floor near-silently, his phone falling to the couch cushions. His other hand takes Peter’s last free wrist and pins it up over his head. They’re close enough now that their breaths mingle, and it’s everything Peter dreamt of. Bucky is so fucking handsome, and the look on his face is dark and ravenous and borderline unhinged. 

The fact that Bucky is still following Tony’s orders, going so far as to force Peter to obey them to—it nearly drives Peter right to the brink.

“—ter? Ignoring me isn’t doing your ass any favors, Mr. Parker.” 

“Not, not ignoring you,” Peter pants into the phone. The change in his voice is distinct. He sounds absolutely wrecked, and there’s no way that Tony doesn’t notice. The Jaguar’s car phone is so good that Peter can pick up the sound of Tony’s breath leaving him in a whoosh. “Please, sir, let me touch myself!” 

It isn’t clear who Peter is begging, whether it is Tony or Bucky or both. Bucky presses down against Peter’s wrists more firmly, sinking them into the soft couch in an obvious reply. Over the phone, Tony’s response is a stern, “No chance, sweet thing. I want you nice and desperate for me when I get home.” 

“I’m always desperate for you,” Peter hisses, eyes locked with Bucky’s as he pulls on the man’s vice-like grip to no avail. “ _ Please _ .” 

“No,” Tony breathes, voice alight with laughter. Cruel bastard. Peter groans. His hips arch upwards, thrusting against air while his feet scrabble against the couch cushions, struggling for purchase. “But keep begging. I’m getting off on it. Fuck, kid. You’ve got me so hard. You better hope there’s some napkins in the glovebox so that I don’t get cum on my suit.” 

“You’re going to cum?” Peter whines. “No fair, sir!” 

“ _ No fair _ would be me telling you all about what’s getting me off,” Tony says, voice smooth though not unaffected. “Thinking about coming home to find you and Bucky in my bed, you riding his cock with your hands tied behind your back because you’re always a brat, my fucking brat, and surely he’s already had to punish you for  _ some _ thing. Maybe he’ll make you face away from him while you bounce on his cock so that he can hold on to your bound hands like you’re nothing more than some wild horse that needs broken in. And I tell you this, kid, I don’t know who I’d envy more—him for being inside you, or you for getting to ride his cock.” 

Bucky’s chest stops heaving, his eyes going unfocused as they stare right through the younger man, lost in thought. That line is back on his forehead, his brows low. For a moment, the grip around his wrists slackens, but Peter is so stunned that he doesn’t even make to pull away. Because he understands now.  _ Bucky didn’t know that Tony wanted him, too _ , and that revelation shocks (and arouses) the older man to his very core. 

Bucky likes Tony. 

Bucky  _ likes  _ Tony! 

This—is an opportunity if Peter’s ever seen one. 

“You’d bottom for him?” Peter breathes into the phone, eyes raking over Bucky’s face to see whether the concept appeals to him. His eyes are more present now, searching Peter just as intently, so cold that they burn. “I’ve never even _ seen _ —have you  _ ever  _ bottomed before?” 

Tony laughs. “The last time I took it up the ass was before you were born, kid, but for  _ him _ ? I could be tempted.” 

There comes a noise, the sound of a few sharp raps of someone’s knuckles on glass. Tony sighs and there comes the rustling of fabric. All sound cuts out (while he mutes Peter’s call, presumably) and when he returns, Peter can hear the frustration in his voice. “Sorry, kid. All work and no play. I’ll Facetime as soon as my meetings are done for the day. Until then? Absolutely no touching your cock, Peter.”

Peter groans, letting his head fall back against the arm of the sofa, gritting his teeth at the endless three days that still are ahead of him. “Daddy, please—!”

But then Tony continues his sentence, and it sends Peter’s heart pounding. “ _ But! _ That doesn’t mean  _ someone else _ can’t touch you. Don’t say Daddy never did anything for you. I’ve got to go, sweet thing. All my love.” 

The call ends. 

And Bucky lunges. 


	7. Chapter 7

He drags Peter off of the couch, one hand wide enough to cradle the back of Peter’s head to avoid letting his skull kiss the floor. Drunk off of arousal, Peter doesn’t fight back, instead arches into the contact so that his hard cock drags along the older man’s, a low desperate sound slipping free from his throat. 

“What are you doing?” Peter breathes, hopeful. Bucky settles between Peter’s thighs (and the stretch in them is absolutely delicious; it’s borderline obscene how wide they have to spread to accommodate the other man) and humps down into the warm cradle of his legs, causing fireworks to explode behind Peter’s eyes. “ _Not_ that I’m complaining— _oh fuck, please don’t_ _stop—_ ” 

“Tell me everything you know about what Tony was saying on the phone,” Bucky growls. Peter cracks his eyes open at the strange request. Above him, Bucky’s hair is a dark curtain that parts around them, blocking out the rest of the world. His face is set, jaw clenched. At his hesitation, Bucky grinds downward again and the friction has his eyes rolling. “ _ Tell me _ , or I’ll stop and leave you here like this.” 

“What do you mean, what—” 

“Why’d Tony say those things about me?” 

“Because he  _ likes  _ you? Jesus, I thought you were supposed to be some ultra-smart assassin capable of, oh,  _ no, no, don’t _ —” 

Bucky has leaned up, letting one heavy armrest flat against Peter’s chest to keep him pinned to the floor and the other resting just above his cock, palm flat against the twitching abdominal muscles. Like this, no matter how much Peter strains, his cock receives no contact. Through his teeth, the dark man says, “What do you mean he  _ likes  _ me? He’s  _ Tony fucking Stark _ !” 

“What’s that got to do with it? Please Bucky,  _ please _ , it hurts!” Showing mercy, he drags his hand down from where it rests against Peter’s stomach, and when that large, warm palm cups his cock, it is almost enough to make him cum. He struggles to get his heels planted on the floor so that he can arch his hips upward. With surprising tenderness, Bucky cradles Peter’s aching balls in his hand before moving up to wrap his fingers around the clothed cock as best as he can, jerking Peter off in a slow, firm rhythm through the fabric of his sweatpants. “Oh fuck yes, thank you, sir, _ thank you _ .” 

“Focus, kid, and maybe I’ll let you cum,” Bucky says coldly. “Tell me everything Tony has told you.” 

“He, he thinks you’re hot,” Peter gasps, shaking, fingers scrabbling at the carpet for purchase. “He said that he re-re _ spects _ you, oh god, thank you, don’t stop—” 

“Then keep talking.” 

“He said that you, you’re art and he admires you and you—oh fuck, please sir, squeeze me tighter, yes!—he said you make him feel  _ safe _ . When he fucked me yesterday, he said he wished that you’d walk in on us, he said that he thinks about you in the next room listening in. God, please, Bucky, can I cum?” 

“What are you asking me for permission for? Like you’re not just a brat who will take whatever he wants anyway.” Bucky says. His voice is cold in the best way, a juxtaposition to the endless heat he pours off, the heat he’s ignited in Peter’s belly. Planting one palm on the floor beside Peter’s head, Bucky reaches down to slide a hand beneath Peter’s ass and drag his hips up off of the floor and grind them against Bucky’s own, their cocks a delicious, explosive friction. “But you told me what I needed, so I guess you’ve earned it. Go on, then. I don’t have all day.” 

Peter wraps his arms around Bucky’s neck, tangling his fingers in that dark hair and using his heels to get the leverage he needs to thrust his way off the deep end. The coil wound so tense in his lower stomach snaps, balls drawing up as he cums into his sweats, so long in coming that it hurts in the best fucking way. His body jerks, muscles tensing and untensing like he’s in the throws of a seizure. But Bucky holds on to him tight, firmly guiding his hips to drag out the orgasm until Peter feels like a cloth wrung free of water. 

His head feels a little fuzzy, throat dry by the time Bucky slips his hand from beneath him. The stickiness in his sweatpants tickles a little where it drips down his legs, but he can’t find it in him to care, not when he’s on this most fragile edge between staying afloat and going under. Then, coldness—and when he opens his eyes, he sees that Bucky has withdrawn, dragged himself and his heat back to the couch and seated himself heavily on the cushions, face tilted towards the ceiling with his eyes closed.

He’s still hard. Peter is just drunk enough to pull himself up onto his knees and make his way to kneeling by Bucky’s legs. The assassin parts them easy enough, leaning his head back up to watch Peter with an empty curiosity, even when Peter opens his mouth and breathes hotly on the bulge in his tactical pants. 

“What are you doing?” Bucky asks, low and dangerous. 

“‘m gonna suck you off,” Peter says. His tongue drags a long, wet stripe from the bottom of that twitching bulge to the top. All he tastes in his mouth is the polyester-cotton blend, and he can’t wait to replace that with the taste of Bucky’s cock. A noise rumbles in the dark man’s chest, a warning, but the challenge does nothing except make Peter’s eyes go glossy where he looks up from beneath his lashes. “ _ I don’t mind if you pretend I’m Tony _ .” 

Bucky grabs a fistful of Peter’s hair and pulls his head back so harshly that a noise slips free of Peter’s mouth, his throat bared. Bucky pulls him, coaxing him back to the floor lest he snap his own fucking neck. One thick boot comes down flat on Peter’s chest, pressing just enough to threaten the rapid rise and fall of his breathing. Still seated on the couch, Bucky looms over him while he loosens his belt. 

“You want my cum, kid?” Bucky asks through his teeth. He draws his cock free from his pants and Peter cranes his aching neck, desperate to see it. The angle is no good, only lets him see the last three inches before the sight is blocked by Bucky’s thick thigh. But what he sees makes his own spent cock jerk. Bucky is thick, flushed a pink just as dark as his lips.With a practiced, firm hand, the man begins to jerk himself off. “ _ Beg for it. _ ” 

Beg for it? The words echo in Peter’s head, setting off alarms that he isn’t nearly far enough under to have silenced. Peter doesn’t beg. Alright, he does, but Peter is under no illusion that being submissive makes him any lesser than the people who dominate him. His submission is a gift to them, Peter Parker is a motherfucking gift, one that Bucky does not yet appreciate and has not yet earned.

“No, you coward,” Peter gasps. Both his hands wrap around Bucky’s boot, but even with all his strength, he can’t budge it. 

The force behind Bucky’s boot increases. When the man leans over to place more weight on it, he looks downright unhinged, his lips pulled back to bare straight, clenched teeth. “What did you just say to me?”

“You heard me. You’re a pussy! Does coming up with an excuse for your depravity make you feel better later? _ I  _ had  _ to jerk the kid off, for information _ ,” Peter mimics, throwing his voice in a mocking impersonation of Bucky himself. “ _ I wouldn’t have let him suck me off, but he  _ begged  _ for my cum _ . You are a twisted fuck. Own it, asshole!”

For a moment, watching the way Bucky’s handsome face twists in fury, Peter thinks maybe he went too far. The boot on his chest adds pressure until his ribs creak, and he feels true fear. Ever since he was a boy, people had warned Peter that his mouth would get him into trouble someday. Maybe this is his ticket about to be called. 

But instead Bucky slips down from the couch until he’s straddling Peter’s chest, pinning thin arms tightly to his sides with the larger man’s thighs, belt buckle gaping and framing his erection like the golden stage curtains at the fucking Lincoln Center. This close, Peter has to stare straight up to look at the man’s face. When his hands fall back to the buttons on his tactical pants, Peter’s eyes slip there instead. 

“Fine,” Bucky mutters. He pulls out his cock, and from  _ this  _ angle it’s truly something spectacular: long and thick and cut with neatly trimmed pubic hair and balls that hang low and heavy. Reflexively, Peter lifts his head up off the floor to see if he can crane enough to lap at the purple, slick head, but he can’t. “That how you want to play it, kid? I’ll own it. I’ll own  _ you _ , you little shit. Gonna paint that pretty fucking face.” 

“Do it,” Peter groans. He struggles to breathe through the weight on his chest, heart hammering. Above him, Bucky strips his cock like it’s a weapon, stroking the length of it with an unforgiving grip while the other reaches down to cradle his own balls, palming them with uncharacteristic tenderness. It’s one of the most obscene, arousing sights Peter’s ever seen, his soft cock twitching where it rests in his own cooling cum. Bucky’s face is just as artful as his cock, head tilted in pleasure, full mouth parted to reveal his teeth clenched tightly shut, the ultimate juxtaposition of soft and bestial. 

His eyes slit open while Peter stares, dark stormy-sea eyes. Peter opens his mouth wide like a target for Bucky to shoot, and the way his face twists in arousal, the cry that comes from his throat as his head falls back - there’s no way Peter could ever forget those things. When Bucky cums, it’s downright explosive, pearlescent seed raining down on Peter, striping his face and the curls of his hair and landing on his eager tongue. 

A desperate sound slips from Peter’s throat as the taste bursts across his buds. It’s cum, not fine cuisine, but it’s  _ Bucky’s _ . Above him, the man makes a tortured sound at the sight of Peter licking his lips. When at last Bucky has drained himself, cum trickling down his scarred knuckles, he shuffles off of where he pinned Peter to the floor. 

For a long moment, both of them rest and catch their breath. Bucky is the first to move, plucking a tissue off of the end table and holding it out to Peter like a white flag, a peace offering. The expression on his face is mostly unreadable. The man who pinned him to the floor and then jerked off onto his face seems to have receded, letting a more closed off Bucky to the forefront. Peter is more than a little fucked thinking about how fond he is of both sides: the unhinged and the sane.

“Don’t get soft on me now,” says Peter, even if it’s kind of nice. The last thing he wants is Bucky feeling some twisted guilt (all that bullshit Peter said earlier about the man’s perversion was just that—bullshit. Maybe they are all perverts, but at least they’re among like-kind). He ignores the tissue and reaches up to wipe three fingers through the mess on his cheeks, slipping them into his mouth to suck them clean. 

“That was a mistake,” Bucky says, voice like sandpaper. “It’s never going to happen again.” 

Peter gapes. “Why not?” 

“Tony—” 

“Were you listening to that phone call?” Peter asks. He feels liable to explode, a ball of fury (of hurt) throbbing just beneath his throat, desperate to be released. How long will Bucky continue to play these games with them? With  _ Peter _ ? “He’s fine with it! More than fine. He’s fucking into it!” 

“Just because he might like it doesn’t mean it’s good for him,” Bucky grits out. “It’s the last thing either of you needs when you’re still getting over what happened with that cunt Beck.” 

“Right,” Peter says, pushing himself up so that the assassin is no longer towering over him. Bucky has an easy four inches on him (and probably sixty pounds), but Peter has never let his small stature keep him from speaking his mind. “Because you’re obviously the authority on what we need!”

“ _ You’re goddamn right I am! _ ” Bucky shouts. “You think you need this? You think you need  _ me _ ? You need me like you need a fucking  _ hole in the head _ .”

“ _ You _ — _ aren’t _ — _ Beck! _ ” Peter’s face burns, reddening with fury and embarrassment. How many times and in how many ways will Beck come back to haunt him? How long must he be dead before the cloud of him dissipates from above Peter’s head? “Tony hasn’t ever left me alone overnight in the five years we’ve been together. Why? I haven’t woken in the night once this week to find Tony sitting in the armchair by the bed, cleaning his gun because he can’t sleep. Why? And you heard us on the phone—Tony hasn’t bottomed in over twenty years, but he said he’d do it for you.  _ Why?  _ Because we trust you, fuckface!”

All at once, the fury drains out of Peter. He finds himself exhausted, eyes burning in a terrible, traitorous way. Turning away, he snatches up the tissue that Bucky had grabbed for him and begins to clean himself off, clenching his jaw so that it doesn’t tremble. His hands shake, adrenalin from the sex, the fight, hormones crashing. 

Peter sits heavily on the sofa, the pile of tissues beside him. His mind begins to whir, trapped in an endless cycle. It’s his fault he and Tony are in this mess, both lusting (that’s all it is, all it  _ can  _ be, Peter swears) after the assassin. When he speaks, his voice is fragile and cracking, slow and slurred and not at all its typical self, but he can barely hear it, can barely feel the words as they trip from his open mouth: “I just don’t get it. You’re attracted to us. It won’t get you in trouble. Why then? Why do you keep doing this? Is it—is it  _ me _ ?” 

“Don’t,” Bucky says, low and threatening. 

Peter doesn’t hear it, lost in the fear that creeps over his mind like fog too thick to see sense through. His words come out garbled around the knot in his throat that is strangling him. “Is it because I’m, because I make things so hard? Running from you ‘n talking back? Because I, I can be good. I swear. Just give me a chance and I can show you.” 

Firm hands grab the collar of Peter’s shirt and drag him right up off the couch until his toes struggle to touch the floor, fabric ripping underneath the brutal grip. Now he’s face to face with Bucky who searches his expression with furious eyes and a downturned mouth. “What’s wrong with you?” the man asks. He shakes Peter a little. “You’re acting like— _ what’s wrong? _ ” 

“I don’t know,” Peter says, answering a question Bucky never asked. His voice warbles, thick with emotion, eyes misting. “I’ve never known—” 

Bucky squints, eyes raking over Peter’s face before settling on his trembling mouth. “Are you  _ dropping _ ?”

_ Oh _ , he thinks, teeth chattering.  _ Yes, yes I am _ . One of Bucky’s wide palms comes up to cradle the back of his head and coax him to look the larger man in the eyes. They’re narrow, intense, unreadable as always. “Come on, snap out of it. Tell me what helps when you’re like this, kid,” Bucky says. 

“ _ Nothing _ ,” Peter says with wet lashes. Because that’s how it feels when he drops this hard, like nothing will help, like nothing will ever get better. 

Bucky pulls them flat together, chest to chest, tucking Peter’s head underneath his chin and wrapping his arms around Peter’s thin frame, squeezing firmly because Peter can’t stop shaking, because he’s trembling like a leaf on a tree tossed in the wind. The warmth the other man gives off is heavenly, cutting through the chill on Peter’s skin and soaking into him deep. Awkwardly, one hand begins to pat at Peter’s back. 

“You’re okay,” Bucky mutters. “Just—fucking calm down.  _ Please _ .” 

Bucky says please like he’d usually say a threat, and it makes Peter’s heart squeeze.

He shakes his head before burying his face deeper into the man’s broad chest, inhaling while he twists his fingers around the fabric of his shirt. Bucky smells always of leather and cologne, sometimes of sweat, but even the smell of sweat isn’t unpleasant when it comes from him. Groaning, Peter lets himself relax into the heat and the scent and the arms that feel like the only thing tethering him to this world. Half of him wishes that they’d let go, that he’d float away somewhere where he’d cease to bother and burden the ones he loves. 

The ground slips out from beneath his feet as Bucky scoops him up and into his arms. Peter struggles for only a moment until Bucky’s grip tightens in a way that is both threatening and soothing. Under that grip, Peter goes lax and lets the man carry him up the stairs as if Peter were nothing more than a basket of laundry. Outside the doors, Bucky hesitates for only a moment between his own door and the door Peter shares with Tony before choosing the latter. 

The sheets smell like Tony. Peter rolls upon contact with them, burying his face and inhaling. Trying to clear the fog from his head. He jerks when someone touches his shoulder, but it’s just Bucky, staring down from so high up with his typical frown and stormy eyes. The bed depresses as Bucky kneels up onto it, coaxing Peter to roll over and sit up. He feels like a child when Bucky takes his shirt off, but there’s no fight in him, not with his mind so far away and his body so weak and fragile. With uncharacteristic tenderness, Bucky uses a cloth dampened from the en suite bathroom to clean Peter’s face of any residual cum, wiping carefully at the delicate skin beneath his eyes, across the expanse of his forehead, down over the slope of his jaw. Peter lets his eyes fall shut, feeling the rasp of the cloth against his sensitive skin, the warm dampness of it. 

He lowers Peter carefully back down into the den of soft sheets and blankets and pillows, and Peter stares through heavy eyes at the man’s figure—

Then he blinks, awakening. The lighting in the room has changed, the sunlight tilting to a dramatic new angle to show that time has passed, that Peter has been asleep far longer than he might have expected. His head throbs, the skin beneath his eyes tender and crusted with dried tears, but he sits up anyway and wipes the drool from his mouth. 

Bucky is seated in the armchair having pulled it up close to the bedside. He’s slumped over, his elbows on his knees, his face buried in his hands. At the sound of the sheets rustling, he lets his hands drop to a more neutral position while he looks up, face blank. 

“Why didn’t you wake me for lunch?” Peter asks. His hands still shake, but the terrible tightness in his chest is gone. “I had a salad in the refrigerator, now I’ll bet the lettuce is all wilted. Thanks for nothing.” 

“I’m sorry,” says Bucky. 

For a moment, Peter thinks he’s misheard. When he asks Bucky to repeat himself, the man looks like he’d rather face torture. But still, he says it again. 

“The salad isn’t a big deal,” Peter jokes weakly. 

Bucky ignores the attempt at deflection.

“I’m supposed to be keeping you safe. But I just keep fucking up.” He stands up and sheds the dark henley he’d been wearing. Peter’s mouth goes dry at the sight of the man shirtless: pale skin, every muscle defined from his pecs to the abs and the lines that frame his package. Here and there are scars: brutal ones along Bucky’s shoulder that make Peter wince in sympathy; a hole of twisted scar tissue from a bullet wound long healed over. Every last detail takes Peter’s breath away. “If you want me, you can have me,” Bucky says, jaw clenched. “I’ll—take care of you.” 

“What am I, a fucking houseplant? Did Tony leave you instructions to water me every other day if my soil feels dry and give me a quarter turn so I don’t bend towards the sunlight? I don’t need you to ‘take care’ of me.” 

“Kid,” Bucky says, low and dangerous. “You make it real hard not to throttle you. I’m trying to have a serious conversation here. Dial down the brat.” 

“I am the brat. Conversation would go a lot smoother if you’d stop being a dumbass, how’s that for a suggestion? A life hack. Yours for free, asshole. And for what it’s worth, I do want you,” Peter admits. He scoots across the bed until his back is pressed against the headboard, pulling the sheets up around himself. It feels easier, here on his turf, in this place that he and Tony have worked so hard to reclaim as safe. Easier to be honest. “Just not like this.” 

Bucky scowls. His abs tense, a distracting motion. “Either you want me or you don’t.” 

“You’re missing the point,” Peter snaps. “Just as much as I want you—maybe more than I want you—I want you to want me. I want to be wanted.” 

“You think I jerk off on casual acquaintances?” Bucky asks. “I want you, okay! Maybe if we fuck, you’ll get this out of your system—” 

“I don’t want you out of my system!” 

“What do you  _ mean _ ? What, you want  _ more  _ than a fuck?” 

The way he says it, like it’s the most ridiculous thing in the world that Peter could possibly want—it makes Peter feel cold all over. Suddenly, he realizes the gravity of what he is saying. He’s admitting to things he didn’t know he felt, things that he’d buried.  _ Tony _ , he thinks.  _ I need to talk to Tony. _ “Forget it.”

Bucky seats himself again, slouches deeply and tangles his hands in his hair to tug. Watching all the muscles in his chest and torso work makes Peter lick his lips reflexively. “Jesus Christ. I still don’t know what you fucking want from me, kid.” Then, with a vulnerability that shakes Peter to his very core: “I’m not  _ good  _ at this. You want me to snipe a guy from a thousand yards? I’m your guy. You want me to build a bomb with whatever you’ve got under your bathroom sink? I can do that. But this—whatever the fuck this is? I don’t know what I’m doing, and I’m just going to fuck it up.” 

Peter swallows heavily. A part of him wants to reach out and take Bucky’s hands from his hair, coax him to let go of a grip that must surely be painful. A bigger part of him wants to say something foul and snappy, something that will keep this argument spinning forever and forever, like tires stuck in slick mud. “I believe in equal opportunity,” he says, as gently as he can. Gentleness doesn’t come easy. “So  _ I’d  _ like a chance to fuck this up, too, please.” 

Bucky snorts softly. “And with both of us working to fuck everything up, who the hell is going to hold this together, huh?” 

And isn’t it obvious? Peter thinks. 

“ _ Tony _ ,” he says. “Duh.”

Reaching out, Peter pats at the bedspread beside him. Bucky watches with wary eyes, like maybe Peter has slipped a whoopee cushion under the blanket, or maybe there’s a land mine that’s been left sitting since WWII buried beneath the sheets of a bed in a 2010 built mansion in New York, still active, ready to detonate as soon as he sits. But after a long moment, he pushes himself up out of the chair (which creaks with his muscled weight) and sits gingerly where Peter directed. 

He looks lost. Unsure. Younger than Peter’s ever seen him. 

“Tell me,” Bucky says, quiet though no less intense. They’re close enough that he doesn’t need to do more than whisper. “Tell me what you want from me. From this.” 

“I want there to be something between us  _ to  _ fuck up,” Peter admits. 

-

Peter takes Tony’s call out by the pool. The New York mansion sits on twelve acres of land, which gives him plenty of vantage points to watch the sun as it sets, smearing the sky with oranges and pinks. Even from this distance, he can feel the weight of Bucky’s gaze. The man is ever watchful, as if someone is going to step right out of the woods and try to drown Peter in the in-ground pool. 

Tony listens quietly while Peter tells him the events of the day, only interrupting to ask a clarifying question or two. That’s the thing about Tony: he’s an amazing speaker, but God can he listen. Peter is a habitually nervous talker, always eager to fill any silence between himself and another person. It works out in Tony’s favor on nights like tonight, when all he has to do is hum thoughtfully and Peter spills his guts and more into the empty air between them. 

The only thing he leaves out is the motivation for Bucky’s actions, the hard-on Peter believes he’s harboring for Tony, hesitant to reveal it without further proof.

“Are you angry, sir?” Peter asks. His anxious feet kick up ripples in the pool. 

“No—why in the world would I be?” Tony asks. “I goaded you into propositioning Bucky, or did you forget? And I’m more than half-hard after hearing about your little  tête-à-tête this afternoon. I’m downloading the security camera footage from the game room as we speak, just so you know. 39% of the way there.” 

Peter smiles, glad his back is to the house so Bucky can’t see. Knowing that soon Tony will be watching him driven to absolute desperation (and then he will see what he let Bucky do to him, not that Peter could have struggled free even if he’d wanted to) makes his gut clench. But as quick as it comes, his smile fades. “I knew you’d be okay with that part. But it’s not like you asked me to go and — _ catch feelings _ for him.”

Tony hums. 

“I don’t want you to think that you aren’t enough for me,” Peter goes on when the silence lasts too long. “Because you are. And I don’t want you to think I’m a slut, even if I am —” 

“Peter,” Tony says, voice low and infused with warning. Peter ducks his chin even three thousand miles away. He still feels the disharmonious undercurrent thrumming in his blood and chest from his earlier drop, and it makes him more pliant than usual. The last thing he wants to do is upset his lover, disobey his lover. “I’ve had it with you calling yourself that word in that tone. Do it again and for the next two weeks I’ll jerk off during my morning shower and the closest you’ll get to sex with me is overhearing any sounds I make through the bathroom door. Understood?” 

“Yessir,” Peter murmurs. Despite the sharp words on the other end of the line, Peter’s feet kick happily. There has always been a part of him that believes his love of sex is a moral defect—society, past lovers, past friends teaching him so. The reassurance from Tony is like aloe to that scorched part of him. There’s nothing wrong with him. Tony says so.

“Good boy. The only feelings of yours I’m concerned with are the ones you hopefully have for me,” he says. “Do you still love me, kid? Tell me now if you want me to cut you loose, and for both our sakes, I’ll pretend that I could do it.” 

“You can cut me loose, but I’ll never leave,” Peter says. “I know where I want to be, Tony. At your feet. Always.”

“I miss sucking on that silver-tongue, sweet thing.” Tony’s voice is just short of a growl, the sound of it rushing over Peter’s skin like the breeze, leaving goosebumps in its wake. 

He lays down, back against the tiles of the poolside, feet still in the water. Above him, the sky is just beginning to turn cobalt blue. Jupiter is bright tonight. His heart squeezes in his chest when he dares to think about how lucky he is. Tony. And now Bucky. But he doesn’t want to count his chickens before they hatch. “Come home, sir.” 

“You just want to fuck,” Tony says slyly. 

Smiling, Peter lets his eyes shut. “I don’t want to go to sleep without you here.” 

“Are you afraid?” 

“I don’t know.  _ May _ be.”

Tony hums. 

Peter sighs. “Maybe  _ not _ . But I miss you even when you’re just in the city—imagine how I feel with you on the other side of the country.” 

“I left you in excellent hands. Speaking of which, I can hardly wait to see those hands on you. 92%.” 

“So slow?”

“The file is huge, kid.” 

“He says he wants to wait until you get back before we fuck,” Peter says, scowling to the stars. 

“No wonder you want me to come home. If he can manage to teach you the value of patience, I’ll double what I’m paying him.”

“The two of you are going to kill me.” Peter weighs his next words carefully. “You know, I think Bucky has a hard-on you.” 

Fabric shifts in the background. Tony’s voice is sharp when he asks: “What makes you say that?” 

Sirens go off in Peter’s brain complete with flashing lights. Abort, abort. “Well who wouldn’t, sir?” 

A soft, humored exhalation, and Peter relaxes. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry about that cliffhanger. thanks for the love. criticism is very welcome, let me know what you think, and find me on tumblr @ cagestark. xo

**Author's Note:**

> Constructive criticism always welcome. Come talk on tumblr @ cagestark


End file.
